


Meal Deal

by suchadearie



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-02
Updated: 2014-01-06
Packaged: 2017-12-28 05:14:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 20
Words: 56,551
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/988119
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/suchadearie/pseuds/suchadearie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Belle French has to cut her spendings drastically to help her father pay back his debts. In order to save as much money as possible, she skips meals. When Mr. Gold notices her haggard looks, he offers her a deal: He will pay her, if she comes to his house and lets him watch her eat.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Deal

The thin librarian looked as if she was about to pass out, and Gold, normally not very considerate, frowned.

"Miss French, are you not well?"

She didn’t answer his question, instead produced an envelope and extended it towards him.

"The next rate for my father’s debts." She sounded cool, and he noticed how her hand trembled when he took the money from her.

"Miss French, when have you last eaten?" She was thinner than last time he came to collect money. Oddly enough that he noticed as much, but when he found himself caring - and worrying - for her health, he decided that he was becoming soft.

"Well, maybe I would remember my last meal if I actually had money to buy food." She sounded tense, and he winced.

"Are you interested in making some extra cash?" His question made her even more tense, and there was a twitch in her cheek when she clenched her jaw.

"What exactly are you proposing, Mr. Gold?"

"Well, I’d like to watch you eat." It sounded worse spoken out loud, far worse than it had sounded in his head.

"Are you a pervert?"

He grimaced at her blunt words, and decided that some manners wouldn’t do her any harm either. But first she needed to eat.

"Just making sure of my investments, Miss French. Can’t have you starving to death."

“And since when do you care?”

“I don’t. But if you starve to death, it’s unlikely I will ever see my money.”

“You realize that, if you pay me and I pay you, you don’t exactly make a huge profit either?” She turned away, presenting him with a view of her twig-like silhouette when she put away a book, and he decided that he didn’t care if he lost half his fortune in that deal.

“If I were you, I wouldn’t point out the flaws of such an arrangement and just take it. You get to eat, I get my money, everyone is content.” And contentment was all he wanted. But she still hesitated, biting her lips and creasing her nose, and he contemplated over ways how he could force her to accept the deal – raise the interest rate of her father’s loan, maybe – when she nodded, as if she had come to a conclusion.

“I will accept your offer. But I want a contract drawn up.”

“Of course, dearie. I wouldn’t suggest otherwise.”

But when he went to his shop to draw up that contract, he wondered what had gotten into him. He never engaged in charity, and this was nothing if not charity. Pity for a starving girl.


	2. Day 1

Belle tried to stop the trembling, tried to breathe, but her legs didn’t stop shaking.

“You have nothing to be afraid of”, she said to herself, but she jumped nevertheless when the door opened and Mr. Gold greeted her with a perking of his eyebrows.

“Miss French. I already feared you’ve forgotten our date.” He stepped aside and gestured for her to step in. Belle looked back to the street, where the car that had picked her up waited.

“How could I forget? You sent a driver.”

Gold smiled, and Belle didn’t like that smile. It sent an unpleasant shiver down her spine. “Just wanted to make sure you wouldn’t bolt”, he said, and Belle grimaced. He closed the door, and Belle flinched when he placed his hand on the small of her back and guided her into an open room that was dining room and kitchen, with large glass doors that led outside into the garden.

“Please, sit.” He gestured to the table, where one place was set.

“Aren’t you eating with me?” Belle felt slightly panicked at the thought that he was going to sit there and just watch her.

“Our arrangement is very specific, Miss French. Every day at six, you will be here to eat, while I watch to make sure that you really do eat.” He pulled back her chair for her, and Belle slumped down, too nervous to move with grace. She still felt him hovering over her, standing behind her chair, his hands on the back of it, and he was altogether too close. She had difficulties breathing. Difficulties to concentrate. And it was not the hunger that made her feel this way, because after a few days, her body had adjusted to the starving, and the constant, raving hunger had dulled to a faint ache beneath her ribs, a feeling as if she was constantly sucking in her stomach. In the course of three weeks, she had learnt to manage mostly on rice. Tasteless, cheap rice.

Gold moved behind her, his fingertips grazing her neck, and Belle wondered if it had been by accident. She didn’t dare to look over her shoulder, just listened to his steps, the thudding of his cane when he walked away from her. When he came back, he placed a plate in front of her, with a beautifully arranged dish. Belle’s stomach turned into a tight knot of hunger when the smell of it reached her, and she swallowed. She waited until he was seated opposite her, her hand hovering over her fork. The situation was so surreal, and Belle was not sure if she could go through with it. Objectively, nothing about this arrangement was in any way suggestive, and it was easy money. Just come to his house and let him serve her a meal, eat it in front of him. Under his scrutiny. Belle could hardly imagine anything more intimate, more suggestive. Maybe if he asked her to strip to her bare bones in front of him, but that was about it. He imposed on her free will, and this, beyond anything else, turned her insides upside down.

“You’re allowed to eat, Miss French. It would be a pity and a waste of my talents in the kitchen to let it get cold.”

His voice startled her, and she almost knocked over her water glass when she flinched. “You prepared this?”

“Indeed I did.”

This was even worse. There had to be some kick he got out of this. Preparing a meal, chopping vegetables and meat with his own hands, watch her eat this…The more she turned this over and over in her head, the more certain she was that he was indeed a pervert. She stared at the plate, at the arrangement of steamed broccoli and lean turkey breast, and she knew she couldn’t go through with it. Everything about this was revolting.

“Don’t make me feed you, Miss French.”

Her eyes flew up to his face, and the cold tone of his voice turned her insides to mush. A hot, burning pain in her lower belly made her fear losing control over her bladder. Breathe, she told herself, breathe. He’s not going to eat you. He’s not going to feed you. Don’t let him scare you.

“It would be easier if you would eat something, too.” Her voice was almost steady, and she chose to believe that he didn’t hear the trembling in it.

“Next time, dearie.”

Belle inhaled deeply, and started eating. She wanted to get it over with, so she ate much faster than she normally would.

“Eat slower, Miss French. Take your time. I don’t want you to choke. That would defeat the purpose.”

Belle didn’t want to look at him. His voice alone was revolting to hear, and having to follow his orders was even more nauseating. She had no idea how she would survive this torture for the next eight weeks – the term they had agreed on for the first run. She tried to concentrate on the extraordinary amount of money he was paying her, enough to increase the payback rate of her father’s debts. Not enough, however, to pay back everything. Of course not, no. Mr. Gold wouldn’t let go of his leverage over her that easily.

She actually managed to clear her plate despite the awkward silence hanging over her, despite his eyes drilling into her and following her every move. But when she wanted to rise, and leave, he lifted his hand and gestured for her to stay put.

“Not so fast, Miss French. I get that this is highly uncomfortable for you, but please, stay for a little longer. I don’t want you to upset your stomach. And I have dessert.”

Belle sank back onto her chair, and couldn’t hold back the grimace at the prospect of eating even more of what he had prepared. “Dessert?” she asked, sounding hopeless even in her own ears. He chuckled, and Belle glared at him.

“Don’t worry, Miss French. I’m not planning on fattening you up and eat you. I’m not the evil witch.”

“I’m not so sure about that”, Belle murmured, more to herself than to him, as he was getting up to fetch her dessert. But he heard her, and, to her surprise, laughed gently.

“I assure you, you will notice when I eat you.”

“And that’s exactly what frightens me.” Belle raised her voice to be heard in the kitchen, and heard him chuckle again. He seemed much more relaxed now that she had eaten. But no less scary. He came back and placed a tiny glass dish in front of her.

“Mousse au chocolate, Miss French. There’s more of it, but I thought we start small.”

“How very considerate of you.”

When he sat down again, there was a smirk lingering in the corner of his mouth, and just for a second, Belle was distracted by how beautiful his lips were.

“I’m glad that you’re spirits are already lifted, after just one meal with me. I’m sure you will be back to being a tigress at the end of our eight weeks together.” He stapled his fingers over his chest, and Belle’s glare seemed to pearl off of him like raindrops off a waxed coat. She chose not to answer to that, and instead ate her dessert – which was infuriatingly delicious. When she was finished, he stood, and waited for her to get up. Belle took care to keep a healthy distance to him at all times, but she couldn’t deny him to help her back into her coat when he held it out for her, even when that meant to let him come much closer than she thought herself to be able to bear. And after he arranged the collar of her coat and smoothed out invisible wrinkles, he took her by surprise when he lifted his thumb to her lips and wiped it over the corner of her mouth.

“You have a smudge of chocolate there, Miss French.” His voice was hoarse, and Belle could hardly breathe. And when he lifted his thumb to his own lips and licked the chocolate off, she was sure that her legs just turned to jelly. Breathe, she told herself again, but there was no oxygen left to breathe. Only when he stepped back did she regain the ability to breathe, and think, and she blushed when she sucked in air with an audible gasp. She had never gone through a more embarrassing, mortifying experience than this whole evening, and when he opened her the door to let her out, with a thin smile and a smooth “I’ll see you tomorrow, dearie”, she wished she would just evaporate on the spot.

But of course she didn’t. Which left her with seven weeks and six days of this ordeal ahead of her. Terrific.


	3. Day 2: Trout with Almond Crust and Potatoes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anonymousnerdgirl prompted: Day 2, Belle feels slightly more at ease eating with Gold- but with her stomach used to being empty vomiting ensues.

She had a whole night and a day to relive her first meal watched by Mr. Gold, a night and a day to come to the conclusion that…it was creepy. No matter how she turned the whole thing around, something remained off. The idea that he was preparing those meals was enough to make her wary. She was a librarian, she had read more than one book in her life, and thank you very much, but eating something prepared by the town villain was never a good idea. Though it had been good. But even a cannibal could be a good cook. Gold was good. However, his motives were dubious, at best, and he was not known for his friendliness, or his charity. Belle wondered if she ever heard a good word about him, and wondered even more why on earth she had agreed to that deal. Her father’s debts, of course. And when Gold had explained the terms of their agreement, it didn’t sound that bad. Only when she sat at his table and felt his eyes dissecting her while she ate did she realize how disturbing the whole thing really was.

But she had signed the contract, and she had agreed to eight weeks. Fifty-six meals left. So, when she arrived at his house on the second day, again picked up by the quiet giant that ran errands for him, she was a little more…not at ease, but fatalistic. It was the way it was, and complaining didn’t make it any better. She even managed a smile when he opened the door and she let him take her coat. A quivering smile that felt more like a grimace, but at least a smile.

“There’s no need to snarl at me, Miss French. I don’t mean you harm.”

That wiped the smile from her face, and she was glad he turned his back to her and walked ahead of her into his dining room, because she probably would have punched him if he touched her again, like the day before, when he placed his hand on her back. 

“Did you tolerate your meal yesterday?” he asked while she sat down and he was fetching something out of the kitchen. Today he had set two places, and Belle was relieved at that. He couldn’t watch her that closely when he had to eat himself, and that made it easier for her.

“Yes, thank you. But just so you know, I don’t have an eating disorder.”

“I know.” He placed a dish in front of her, and one at his own place. Belle was impressed at his skills to carry two plates in one hand, but then, he probably was walking long enough with a cane to have developed a certain ability at managing with one hand.

“I just have to watch my finances very closely.” She sounded defensive, and hated it.

“And the blame for that lies entirely with me, of course.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“No, but you thought it. Now, let’s not fight. Do you like trout, Miss French?”

Belle stared at her plate, at the fish filet with almond crust and potatoes, and she had to admit that it looked and smelled mouthwatering. And fish was fish. It was pretty hard to pass off something else as fish, right? Maybe he wasn’t a cannibal after all.

“Enjoy your meal, Miss French”, he said, and Belle took her first bite with her eyes firmly on her plate, determined to shut him out. This way she could pretend he wasn’t there, and wasn’t watching her as she hacked at the trout. It fell apart on her fork and melted on her tongue, and she closed her eyes only for a moment, stunned with the taste. She couldn’t remember when she had ever eaten this good.

A silent chuckle cut through her moment of bliss, and her eyes flew open again. Gold had watched her, and he seemed pleased with her reaction to his cooking skills. Bastard, she thought.

“It tastes delicious, Mr. Gold”, she said.

“Thank you, dear.”

It was really easier to eat when he was eating, too, and they passed their meal in agreeable silence. But he was finished before her, and that left him still time to watch her. His gaze made her clumsy again, and it bordered to a miracle that Belle still remembered how to use a fork at all. But he didn’t comment when she managed to drop her last bite halfway between her plate and her mouth, and Belle was grateful for it.

“Today you can chose between mousse au chocolate and lemon meringue pie, dearie”, he said, and Belle just wished to skip dessert.

“Did you bake the pie?” she asked, to stall, mostly.

“Yes, I did. There’s still an awful lot of the chocolate mousse left, though. I think I was a little overenthusiastic when I made it.” He took their plates with him into the kitchen, and Belle leant back in her chair. He hadn’t served her an overly big portion, but still, she felt close to exploding. Her stomach wasn’t used to this amount of food, and she knew with absolute clarity that she shouldn’t eat dessert. But she was afraid of his reaction if she declined, afraid he might get unpleasant, so she tried to breathe away the nausea.

“I’d like to try the pie.” The chocolate mousse would probably be too heavy right now, so pie sounded like the better choice. The pie was delicious, light and sweet, and she forgot that she was already full and close to bursting. And it was only a tiny piece. Only when she finished it did she realize that it had been too much.

Her world started to spin, and her stomach heaved.

“You look a little pale, dearie. Everything alright?”

Belle closed her eyes and tried to take deep and steady breaths to keep her roiling stomach under control. It didn’t help.

“I think I need to go to the bathroom”, she choked out, and Gold indicated her the direction. There was a frown on his face, and Belle tried not to think of it as she rushed to the bathroom. By the time she reached it, she was retching, and every attempt at keeping the contents of her stomach down were for naught. She felt terrible afterwards, her throat raw, her insides hurting with the cramps, and her face blotchy, red and tear-stained. She knelt on the floor, half hanging over the toilet, and sobbed. She couldn’t face him, not after that. What if he made her eat another portion?

There was a gentle knock on the door, and she heard Gold clearing his throat. “Are you alright, Miss French?”

“Go away.”

“I would like to oblige, but since this is my house, things are a little more complicated.”

Belle snorted, and scrambled back to her feet. She splashed cold water into her face, but her face was a lost cause. She looked terrible, and there was nothing she could do about it. When she opened the door, he awaited her in the hallway, leaning on his cane and frowning at her.

“I think the dessert was too much”, she said, and his brows shot upwards.

“Then why did you eat it?”

“I didn’t want you to get mad at me.” She was ashamed of her fear, ashamed of her failure, and his stern gaze on her made it even worse.

“Well, now I am mad at you. Why do you think we’re doing this exercise?”

Belle stared at her feet. How could he be this cruel? Did he delight in her misery? Maybe he wasn’t a cannibal, but he was a sadist for sure. “You get a kick out of watching me eat”, she whispered, and winced when he snorted.

“Wrong, Miss French. I want you to get better. I want to keep you from starving because you feel as if you have to sacrifice yourself for your father’s sake. I don’t want you to feel worse because of me. I want you to tell me when you’re full. I’m not forcing you to eat.”

“I was afraid you would.” Her voice was thin, tiny, and she didn’t dare to look at him.

“I can see that.” He watched her for another moment silently. Belle didn’t know what to say. “Come, Miss French, I’ll make you a tea.”

“Do I have to eat again?” she asked, and the words almost choked her.

“No. Contrary to what you may think, I’m not cruel.” He turned and walked away, leaving it to her to follow him back into the dining room. He had cleared away their dishes, and somehow it made Belle at the same time more anxious and more relaxed to sit down at the empty table. It didn’t take him long to prepare her a cup of tea, and Belle was grateful to have something to occupy her hands, and if it only was to hold a teacup.

“Do you want to take something of the pie with you, in case you get hungry again later?”

“No.” Belle still didn’t look up from her tea – black tea, she supposed – not even when he exhaled with a heavy sigh.

“Miss French.” He waited for her to react, and finally she met his eyes. “Please stop acting as if I was about to eat you alive. It’s ok for you to feel unwell. You have to get used to healthy amounts of food again, and we both gain nothing by forcing the matter.”

“Yes”, she croaked, her throat still raw from being sick.

“Then I will see you again tomorrow?”

As if she had a choice. But at least he offered her the illusion of a choice, so she nodded, biting her lips.

“Good”, he said. This time, when he led her to his door, he didn’t touch her in any way inappropriate, and Belle was deeply thankful for that.

Maybe he wasn’t as bad as she thought.


	4. Day 3: Roasted Duck and Gratin Dauphinois

It was only day three, and he already considered to end their agreement while he watched her pick at her plate. Miss French did neither trust nor like him, and each meal so far had been a torment to endure. She was so terribly afraid of him that she didn’t even dare to decline a dessert. That was like a stab in the gut, one he could go easily without. Gold knew that his reputation was not the best, but this amount of fear was ridiculous. Especially since the point of their deal was not him forcing her to eat, but…well, making sure that she ate at all. Maybe there wasn’t much of a difference after all.

Normally he quite enjoyed the fear he instilled in others. It kept his tenants and debtors at bay, kept everyone at a healthy distance and his life free from obligations and pesky relations. He was happy to be alone. And at first he had thought that it would be helpful to keep Miss French in a healthy state of respect as well. But when she vomited after her second meal with him, he saw that his plan had certain flaws. She was not likely to relax around him when she feared him. And he hated to see his efforts go to waste. He prepared those meals as meticulous as he did everything, and he couldn’t help but feel a little insulted when she got rid of it in his bathroom.

He had not expected her to relax the first night, so it didn’t come as a surprise when she was all tense and wary. When she asked him if he wasn’t eating with her, he cursed himself silently for not thinking of it himself. Of course it was much more comfortable to eat in company. And he had not been himself all that evening, doing even something as ridiculous and inappropriate as wiping chocolate from her lips – and the memory of that alone made him feel hot and breathless. He promised himself that this would never happen again, and he worked hard to keep that promise, although all he wanted to do when she came out of his bathroom after being sick was to hold her, brush her hair from her face and stop her shaking. Finding out that she was too frightened to tell him when she was unwell made his back tense and his jaw stiff, and twisted his insides into tight knots. It made him want to get away from her.

But alas, they had 55 days left, and he would certainly not give up after only two ruined attempts at making it work. But if her face was any indication, he could just as well try to charm a rock with his cooking skills. She picked at the gratin dauphinois and the roasted duck breast as if she was afraid of projectile vomiting if she actually ate it. He watched her for five minutes before he put down his cutlery with a clatter. It made her jump, for heaven’s sake.

“Miss French. Is there something wrong with the duck?”

“No.” She didn’t look at him. Of course not.

“Is the gratin not to your liking?” He would find out what was wrong, and if he had to tie her to her chair and tickle it out of her. He tried to shove that image back to where it came from, but it was a very persistent vision. He wetted his lips with the tip of his tongue.

“It’s delicious”, she said.

“Then what’s the problem?” He asked a little harsher than he intended to, because he knew perfectly well that she had not even tried it yet, and she put down her fork and knife with a clatter as well.

“I want to alter the deal.”

Well, that was fast. Day three, and she already wanted a way out of this. He chose to ignore that he himself had thought about ending their agreement only a few minutes ago.

“That’s not what I do, dearie. A deal is a deal, and you signed up for eight weeks.”

“I know that. And I didn’t mean that. I just…” She trailed off, and he had to suppress an angry snort.

“Just spit it out, then.”

“I wondered if I could watch while you prepare the meals.” She almost stumbled over the words, and it all sounded like a single, ridiculously long word, but she met his eyes, and her gaze was rather determined. Gold stared at her. That was not what he had expected. Not at all.

“Are you afraid I’m trying to poison you?”

“No, not really.” But her answer came so slow and hesitantly that he knew that this was exactly what she feared. He raised a brow, and she blushed. She was beautiful with her face flushed, biting her lips as if she was ashamed. He liked that look on her, and he had a hard time swallowing down the lump in his throat and pushing back any thoughts about exactly how far down that blush reached.

“Then I guess it’s only fair when you watch me cooking and I watch you eat. But an alteration like this will cost you something.”

Her face darkened, and he allowed himself a smirk.

“Spit it out”, she growled, and he chuckled. She was much braver when she was angry, and he contemplated over ways to tease her, to bring out this side of hers more often. It became her much better than the meekness she had displayed till now.

“How about making it, say, twelve weeks instead of eight?”

“Ten. And the possibility to opt out after eight weeks for both of us.”

“Fair enough.” He would have gone down as far as nine weeks. Not that he would tell her. “Of course that means that you will have to come here much earlier. Say, at four. Do you think you can suffer my company for two more hours each day?”

“Two hours? How long does it take you to cook all this?”

“Cooking is an art, Miss French. It doesn’t want to be rushed.” And besides, he wanted her to get more comfortable with him, another reason for his gross exaggeration of time needed to cook. He could act as if he was hopeless at chopping vegetables. Maybe he could even move her from watching him to take part, to cook with him. Before he knew where his mind was going, he saw himself popping a cocktail tomato between her lips, saw the juices squirt as she bit into it, and saw himself…He tore away from that image and swallowed. “I may be nervous when I have a spectator”, he said, and god, he sounded hoarse.

“Well, I get that. Eating with an audience makes me nervous, too.” She smiled, a brief dimpling of her cheeks, and Gold found himself wanting more. More smile. More friendliness. More warmth. All of a sudden, he wished to be friends with her, and he never wanted to be friends with anyone. He was perfectly well on his own.

“So, now that that’s settled…shall we eat now?”

Her smile vanished, and she nodded. At least now she was really eating, not only picking away like a bird. And when she tasted the first bite, her face lit up, sending a jolt of warmth through his veins. He had not expected to like it so much to watch her eat what he had prepared for her. To see that she liked it. Cooking had always been something he did for himself. Something he enjoyed and relished, something completely personal, for his own pleasure. And since he had no friends, he never experienced the joy and the pride it brought to cook for someone else. Had never expected it.

Gold didn’t press her for dessert that day, although he still had leftovers from the pie, and it made him insanely happy when she asked, after he cleared away her plate, “Do I not get a dessert today?”

“If you want to, dearie. There’s still something of the lemon meringue pie left.”

“Then I’d like a piece of that.” She smiled again, as if she tried to reassure him, and even followed him into the kitchen. When he placed a piece of cake for both of them on dessert plates, she took hers and, instead of going back to the dining room table, hopped on the kitchen counter, legs dangling, and started to eat right there. Gold watched her, stunned and somehow feeling as if the air around him was suddenly much thinner, much harder to breathe in, and he tried frantically to swallow all the saliva that filled his mouth.

“What are you doing?” he croaked, and the smile she offered him, with stuffed cheeks and powdered meringue on her lips, made his stomach drop beneath the floorboards.

“I’m getting to know your kitchen. I never saw one so…”

“Pretentious?” he offered, when she didn’t continue, and she creased her forehead.

“I was going to say roomy and well equipped. I love your stove.”

He looked at his stove, a little at a loss what exactly she could love about it, since it was just a gas range. A big and rather expensive one, but still.

“You’re feeling much more at ease today, aren’t you?” he asked, and she tilted her head and licked the meringue powder from her lips. He wanted to do that for her. Gold tried to shrug off the spider webs fogging his mind with a shaking of his head, but the strange want was still there.

“Well, it helps to know that I won’t be the only one who gets watched from now on.” She placed the plate at her side on the kitchen counter and picked at the crumbs covering her dress, and Gold wanted to do that for her, too, so badly he felt his fingertips prickle. But he remembered his promise to himself not to touch her inappropriately. Again. Though picking crumbs from her dress didn’t count as inappropriate, did it? Before he could make up his mind, she was finished and hopped down from the counter, sparing him the torment of actually making a decision.

“That was really delicious, Mr. Gold. Maybe I can even learn a thing or two from you.”

“Oh, I’m sure you can, dearie.” He barely managed to hold back the groan that his own words provoked in his throat. _I’m sure you can_ , really? How about _let me teach you a thing or two_? That wasn’t inappropriate at all. He wondered what had happened to his brain. Maybe something with the duck had been wrong and fried his wits.

“Well, then I’ll see you tomorrow. At four.” She seemed not to have noticed his brainlessness, but he was not relieved until she was out of the door and he was once more alone in his house. And while he cleaned up, he wondered if he had ever, in his whole life, made such an unfavorable deal.

He couldn’t come up with a single one.


	5. Day 4: Spinach Quiche

Belle was not sure if it wouldn’t be the most awkward thing ever to watch him cook, but she was relieved that he had agreed to it. At least this way she could be sure he didn’t put…things into her food. After closing the library on the fourth day, she went to the grocery store and picked a bottle of wine to bring with her, because she was pretty sure that she would survive two more hours of his company only with enough alcohol in her system, and maybe it would take the edge off of him, too. At first she hadn’t noticed it, but he seemed just as tense and nervous as she was, and the look in his eyes when she hopped onto his kitchen counter the night before…well, for a moment she had feared he was about to murder her.

She thought that wine was a good idea to ease the mood, but when she presented him with the Pinot Noir she bought, he looked as if she was presenting him with a dead raccoon.

“What’s that?” he asked, and Belle looked at the bottle to check if she had, somehow, mistaken a cleaning agent for wine.

“It’s a Pinot Noir…I thought we could have some wine to dinner.”

“I appreciate the effort, Miss French, but I wouldn’t use that to rub my feet with it.” He looked disgusted at the wine bottle and took it gingerly from her hand, holding it as if it could bite him any moment.

“You rub your feet with wine?” she asked, following him into the kitchen.

“No, I don’t. But if I would, I wouldn’t let this abomination near my feet.”

“Well, good to know you’re not at all snobbish, then.” She winced when he put the bottle with a clank down on the marble surface of his kitchen counter and turned around as if something had bitten him into his behind.

“Miss French, please open the bottle.”

Belle looked around, searching for a bottle opener, but there wasn’t even a speck of dust anywhere in his kitchen, let alone any scattered tools.

“It’s a screw-cap.”

Belle blushed, and the heat in her cheeks intensified when she stepped closer to take the bottle and open it. He turned away then, limping to a cupboard and producing a wineglass. His fingertips grazed hers when he took the bottle from her hand, and Belle wondered over the prickle this sent over her skin, from her fingertips over her arm and right up to her ears. God, she was sure her ears started glowing, and she was glad they were covered by her hair. He poured only a tiny sip into the glass, enough to cover the bottom of it, and shoved it towards her.

“Take a sip. But first smell it.”

She did as he told her, only too aware of his eyes on her. The wine smelled like…wine. Maybe a little like vinegar, too. Belle had no idea about wine, but obviously he had.

“You know, I didn’t try to insult you. I just wanted to ease the mood.”

He furrowed his brows, and Belle was not sure if he even listened. “Yes, yes. Now, try it, please”, he instructed, and Belle took a sip of the wine. Ok, he was right. It tasted sour. She wasn’t much of a wine drinker, but even she could tell that this Pinot Noir was really not good. She didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of actually grimacing, but she could tell that he didn’t miss her reaction. He took the glass from her hand.

“Please, don’t pick out wine to ease the mood ever again.”

“Alright, alright.” Belle was a little miffed, because, after all, she had just tried to be nice, and he acted as if she had tried to poison him. What a waste of money. And she only could afford the wine because he paid her. Somehow that made it even more frustrating. “I just wanted to be nice”, she murmured.

“Yes, I know. Now, pour that muck into the sink, if you please.”

“Hey, I paid for that.” He couldn’t mean that.

“And it was an enormous waste of money, I’m sure. How much did you pay? Five dollars?”

Belle narrowed her eyes at him and took the bottle. “2.65”, she said, as she poured the red wine into the sink. If possible, his face showed even more disgust at that.

“Remind me to never let you buy wine on your own again.”

“I will do no such thing.” She was not entirely sure if she meant buying wine on her own, or letting him impose so much on her life as to never buy wine without his counseling again. The latter, probably. If he wasn’t sure either, he didn’t mention it, and Belle was glad she didn’t have to explain the concept of free will and being one’s own person to him. Though, sooner or later she would have to, because the way he was ordering her around was a little discomforting.

“So, what are you going to cook today?” she asked, the empty bottle still in her hand.

“Spinach Quiche with green salad.”

“No fancy meat today?”

For a moment he looked at her as if he considered to turn her into dinner, but then he shrugged, and Belle noticed that she had held her breath.

“No, Miss French. It’s possible to cook something delicate without meat.”

“I know that. I just never met a man who abstained from meat out of his own free will.” Generally she had thought that _the more meat the better_ was a principle men lived on.

“Then you have met the wrong men, dearie.”

She was glad that he was talking into his fridge and didn’t see her, because she was sure that she just made a face at him. When he closed the fridge, producing a lot of leafy greens, she took care to keep her face straight, impassive, blank, but he raised his brows as if she had a giant bug on her nose.

“Everything alright?” he asked, and Belle hurried a nod. He was much too observant. Normal men didn’t pay attention to what was going on with her face. Or in her head, for that matter. She put away the empty wine bottle she still held in her hand, and looked for a place where she wasn’t in his way. She decided to lean against the counter a little away from the sink, so he had all the space he needed to operate between sink, stove and oven.

“Is that for the salad?” she asked, pointing her chin to the greenery in his hands, and he snorted.

“That’s the spinach, dearie. It doesn’t usually come in frozen blocks, you know?”

Belle’s face burnt, and she decided to ask no further questions. But apparently that one question already exposed her inability in the kitchen, and he must have decided to teach her, because he started to explain every single step of his preparations.

“I’m going to blanch it, and hash it afterwards.”

Belle watched as he washed the green leaves, and set up a pot with water. Then he came up to her, came to a halt much too close in front of her, and Belle felt herself tremble. What was wrong with her? What was wrong with him? He leaned closer, and looked at her as if he wanted to kiss her, and Belle leant backwards.

“You’re blocking my drawer, dearie. I need a knife.” A fine smile was on his lips, as if he knew exactly what she had suspected him to do, and Belle jumped out of the way, her skin burning in earnest now.

He chopped mushrooms while he waited for the water in the pot to boil, and Belle wondered briefly – and out of a safe distance – how it was possible that someone with such deft hands, who took meticulous care in everything he did and was a great cook, could be so clumsy at hacking mushrooms. She had to tear her eyes away from his hands, because somehow, looking at them made her a little dizzy. As if her body was forgetting how to breathe. Also, she feared he might cut himself, and if she saw blood, she got seriously dizzy. The idea alone made her stomach heave.

“Everything alright, dearie? You look a little…fuck.” He drew in a sharp breath, and Belle fixed her eyes on his face, determined to not look down, under no circumstances whatsoever. Of course he had cut himself, and it was her fault. She had made it happen, with the sheer power of her imagination.

“Please tell me you haven’t cut yourself”, she whispered, breathing hard through her nose.

“I might have…are you going to faint?”

“No”, she said, before she flopped to the ground as if all her bones had turned to rubber in the blink of an eye.

“Great”, she heard him say, before the thrumming in her ears drowned out everything else. He crouched down before her, sucking on his index finger, and shook his head. “So much for my brilliant plan to cook as slow as possible.”

“Why would you do that?” Belle tried to focus on his eyes. Such warm, brown eyes.

“I must admit, I enjoy your company. But if I had known how squeamish you are, I would have been more careful with that knife…”

“That makes not the least bit of sense. At all.”

He chuckled, and grasped her arm to help her up again. “Here, let me. You’re going to sit on the couch now and let me do my thing in the kitchen, and tomorrow we try again, alright?”

Belle nodded, knowing that she wouldn’t be able to stand for a while, so she didn’t object when he guided her to the couch in the living room – which was just another part of the big open room that was his living area. She could still see him from her spot on the couch, at least his upper half. She couldn’t see what he was doing, though, and she decided that she just had to believe that he wasn’t mixing mysterious ingredients into her food.

“So, basically, you exaggerated when you told me you need two hours to prepare a meal?” She asked him, when he was blanching spinach.

“Only a little. Some meals are more complicated, you know.”

“Right. But why the act? Was it worth it to nearly chop off your finger?”

“My finger is still very much attached to my body, thank you. But as I said yesterday, I get nervous when I’m watched.”

“No kidding, huh?”

He didn’t answer at once, and Belle wondered if her tone was too casual. If she should go back to being more reserved. She nearly jumped off the couch when he let out his breath in a chortle.

“No, I suppose not.”

Despite his nervousness, he managed to produce a really delicious quiche, and he promised her that there was not a single drop of blood in it – “Though maybe I could work a little blood magic and enchant you with a drop of my blood”, he said, and Belle nearly choked – and he served a white wine to dinner that screamed “wine person” at Belle. Not that she needed any more evidence after the disaster with the wine she had brought.

When he saw her to the door, after dinner, she had to admit that she had almost enjoyed his company that day, and that she was even looking forward a little to the next day. Somehow, the prospect of eating 66 more meals in front of him – with him – was much less terrifying now. It was almost living in luxury, having him cook delicious food for her, and getting paid for eating it.

Remembering their agreement, and the thought of him paying her, cooled down the feeling of warmth that had started to spread in her chest. It was still obscene. She couldn’t get so easily over _that_.

 


	6. Day 5: Steak and Eggplant-Cauliflower-Curry

Somehow he had started it all wrong. Each time he played the previous evenings out in his head, he couldn’t help but feel – creepy. It was a miracle – and proof of her dire circumstances – that she even had agreed to his proposal. No wonder she didn’t relax when she was with him. And then he managed to make it all worse by cutting into his finger. He had almost knocked her out, without so much as touching her. That didn’t exactly help his nerves the following day. At least she didn’t bring wine this time. No, far worse. She brought a book.

“I decided to read to you while you cook”, she said, and Gold wondered how he should survive cooking without bleeding out through several fatal cuts, distracted by her deep voice and that accent that tickled between his lungs. He never knew that a voice, or a certain tone of a voice could do that, could get between his organs and muddle with them. But he learned it that day, when she read to him. He didn’t even know what it was she read, because her voice carried him away and the words became meaningless. It was a miracle he didn’t ruin their meal. Though how exactly he managed to keep the steaks from burning, he didn’t know. He was a little heavy with the salt on the eggplant-cauliflower curry (his hand must have slipped when she read something particularly revolting in her voice that even made a carcass sound sexy), but apart from that, he managed to produce a decent enough meal. Edible.

“It tastes…interesting”, she said, after trying, and he let his cutlery sink down with a clatter.

“It’s all your fault. How am I supposed to concentrate when you read about decay and murder?” He wanted to take back those words as soon as they were out, wanted to change them in a funny, light remark (about the weather, preferably), and wanted to squeeze his eyes shut and pretend he didn’t exist, but instead of jumping to her feet and storm out of his house, she cocked her head and…laughed. And that laugh lighted a sparkler inside his stomach, tickling and blinding and hot and sizzling. It made the flames of the candles on the table flicker, and overcharged his nerves with something close to asphyxiation. How was he supposed to eat when she turned his stomach upside down?

“I’m sorry. I didn’t remember that book being quite as detailed and gross. Not the best backing for preparing a meal, I suppose.” She smiled, and his eyes were drawn to her teeth, perfectly white and even. He tried to ignore his wish to feel those teeth scrape over his skin.

“Not really, no.”

“How does it work for you…Do you have to get to a special mind place for cooking?”

He creased his forehead, not exactly sure what she meant. “It’s just cooking…”

“You said it’s an art.” She was really paying attention to what he said, and that was something completely new to him. She even paid attention to what he didn’t say, and this was even more irritating.

“Well, I guess it’s the same as with any art form – first comes the technique. Master the technique, evolve from the basis.”

She raised her eyebrows, and he couldn’t blame her. He wasn’t exactly an expert in arts. Not the ones that were considered as such, at least. He delighted in creating deals, wield contracts that bound their signers in complicated nets, artful bondages, and for those, it was a necessity to know the basics. A good contract, the fine point of a deal, was as much a piece of art to him as a painting was, or a sculpture. Or a meal.

“I think I get it. I never paid much attention to cooking. I can do pasta, but that’s about it.” She took another bite of her steak, and Gold felt a smile tug at his lips. It made him happy to see her eat, but it made him even happier to eat with her. This social aspect of eating was something he never really appreciated before. And he wanted her to know that, wanted her to know that he _wasn’t_ a creep, that it was not the watching that made their shared meals special, but the company. But if he told her, she would look at him and see the sorry old man he was, the lonely pawnbroker. He didn’t know if he was ready to stop being the terrifying Mr. Gold with her.

Her eyes found him looking at her, and he tore his gaze away from her lips. Best way to convince her that it was not about the watching was staring at her like a lecher.

“It doesn’t have to be complicated to be good.” He fixed his eyes on his plate and almost missed the soft smile flitting over her face. She smiled a lot that day. “Tell me, what made you choose the book you brought?”

“I figured that, as a man with a penchant for law and, um…order, you’d appreciate a good thriller.”

“So it’s not your personal taste in books?”

“Not exactly, no.”

Somehow it saddened him that she would choose a book to please him, not one she herself liked. He wanted to know what kind of stories sparked her imagination, wanted to know what made her thoughts fly.

“What would be a book of your choice, then?” he asked, and she looked at him as if he had asked her to join him on a flying carpet.

“Are you sure you want to start this conversation? It gets quite boring.”

“I wouldn’t have asked if I wasn’t interested.”

“Sure. That’s what everyone says.”

“Try me.”

She grinned, and her grin tickled his throat, and his ribcage, demanded a grin in return. “You make yourself sound like a dessert”, she said, and giggled. His cheeks warmed with the giggle, and with the image she created in his mind. He tried to get rid of the strange want to be a dessert. Of the wish to let her bury her perfect teeth in him.

“Well, there is nothing sweet about me. Tell me about the stories you like.”

She looked as if he’d said something utterly stupid, but she told him about the books she read – anything, really, but she liked quirky stories, stories that took her far away to realms of fantasy or adventure. There was a distant look in her eyes when she talked about adventures, and Gold could tell that she was indeed far away. It was fascinating, and he’d liked to get closer, see what she saw through her eyes, feel her excitement and the longing that vibrated through her words. He didn’t notice his food growing cold, or the candles on his table burning down, and it was almost a shock when she came back from that faraway place in her mind and fixed her eyes with sudden sharpness on him.

“Did I lull you to sleep?” she asked, with that tone that said _I told you so_.

“Not at all. In fact, I was so fascinated I forgot to eat. As did you.”

She stared down at her plate and blushed. He liked to see her skin burn, liked to imagine the heat she must feel creeping up her neck, and her cheeks, and the soft boiling of shame that made her throat tight. He liked it far too much, and it cost him every ounce of strength he possessed to tear his gaze away from the delicious shade of red on her skin. She glowed.

“I think we should proceed with dessert. What do you think?” He folded his napkin and tried to sound casual.

“Yes. That sounds like a good idea.” Her voice was hoarse, and he realized that he couldn’t get up to fetch their dessert. Not now, anyway. Not in this state.

“Maybe you want to take a look at my bookshelves and find something else to read while I fetch our dessert?” That way he could get up.

“Really? You don’t mind me reading to you?”

“Not at all, dear.” Maybe he should try to help himself with a bucket of ice water. He indicated her the bookshelves lining the side of the living room area, and she got up with an expression as if she just spied Santa Claus depositing presents under the Christmas tree. That didn’t help his condition. He tried to reason himself out of it, telling himself that she was off limits, that this way of thinking about her was wrong on so many levels that he deserved every single reciprocation she might have in stow for him. They had a deal, and that deal bound them very tightly and very specifically. If he was to act on that mad desire that seared through his veins, he would never know if she reacted out of her free will, or because she thought he had some leverage over her. Of course, she could just give him a kick to the balls, but somehow he didn’t think her the violent kind of woman. She was docile. Gentle. He was not. He was not the type of man she deserved.

Only when the tiramisu hit the dessert plates with a wet squelch, he realized where his thoughts had gone. Just when exactly had he started to think about her that way? With _that_ part of him? He didn’t have a heart. It had been destroyed with root and branch long ago. The realization doused him with enough cold to put out the flame of his desire, and he was able to appear completely calm and unmoved when he served the dessert.

Belle stared from the plate to him and wrinkled her nose. “Are you not feeling well?” she asked, and caught him completely off guard.

“What? Why?”

“Well, normally you take more care to arrange the food on the plate. This is just a blob. And the curry was oversalted, so I wonder if everything’s alright?”

“Everything’s fine, dearie. Eat, before I change my mind and make you eat the oversalted curry.” He hadn’t intended to sound sharp, but he did, and he could see her defenses slip back into place, could see her getting her guards up again, and he silently cursed himself. She didn’t talk again, and when he asked her if she found a book that she liked in his collection, she said “no”, short and without looking at him, and he knew it was a lie, because she had placed a little stack of books on his couch table. The tiramisu tasted like sawdust then, and he hardly managed to swallow it down. Belle had lost her appetite, too, and was picking at the dessert as if she didn’t remember how to eat at all.

“I’m sorry, dear. I didn’t mean to snap at you.” The apology burned his throat and nearly got stuck. He never apologized, least of all for a senseless threat, slipped out in a moment of fear. She saw right through him, read him in the way he arranged his meals, and it frightened him what she might see there.

“Well, you did. I just tried to be nice.”

She didn’t look at him, and that irked him most of all. “What is it with you and that constant need to be nice? Would you try to be nice even when I behaved like the beast you think me to be? Would you still be nice to me if I made you eat that disgusting curry?”

She shoved back her chair and rose, but she didn’t run for the door. Instead, she planted her palms on the table and leaned forward, facing him with her eyes narrowed and her jaw set in a way that should have been a warning.

“Yes”, she said, but it was more a growl than anything else. “Yes, I would. Because no matter how vile or evil someone is, everyone deserves respect. Even you. And frankly, Mr. Gold, I’d like to see you try.”

“You’re pretty naïve if you think I couldn’t get you to do what I want. And everyone knows it’s best not to cross me, dearie.” He hissed that last part, rising from his seat and leaning closer. The admission that she thought him to be vile and evil burned through his insides and left a bitter taste on his tongue.  

“Being gentle is not a weakness. Neither is being nice.”

“What else could it be?”

“It takes a great deal of courage and strength to be nice to someone as rude as you.” She straightened, and he sank back on his chair, utterly deflated.

“You think me rude?”

Belle came around the table and halted at his side. He didn’t dare to look up at her, knowing that he would see nothing but disgust in her eyes. “Yes, Mr. Gold. It’s rude to threaten someone, even when it happens because you are afraid of letting someone see behind your perfect façade, of admitting that something unsettled you. Neither one is a valid reason for being hurtful or lashing out.”

“You really are a clever one, aren’t you? Having figured out the scary Mr. Gold after five days. Congratulation, dearie.” He rose again and turned away.

“You’re doing it again.”

He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He wouldn’t turn around, no. He had no idea what had happened, how she managed to get under his skin so quickly, or create that itch that made him so completely unreasonable. He heard her move behind him, and he flinched when she placed her hand on his shoulder, lightly, like snow falling in a cold winter night.

“I’ll see you tomorrow at four, Mr. Gold. Have a nice evening.” Her hand left him, and in a fit of madness, he turned on his heel and caught her wrist, holding her back. For a moment they both stared down at his hand clasping her wrist, before he cleared his throat and let go of her.

“It’s Rhett”, he said, and it was as close to another apology as he could get himself.

“Ok then, Rhett. Until tomorrow.” A shiver ran down his spine with the way his name rolled off her tongue, and he forced himself to nod. He was painfully aware that she didn’t offer him her first name, but he was content with knowing that she would, at least, come back. And if only because he forced her to do so with a piece of paper. 


	7. Day 6: Ravioli out of a can

His name was Rhett. For a second, Belle was too shocked to remember to offer him her first name. Then it was too late and she walked out of his door and to the waiting car. He still didn’t trust her enough as to not send his driver to fetch her. Or maybe he tried to be gentlemanly. Whatever it was, the big, silent man that drove his car scared her, and she would have preferred to walk, even when it would take her much longer this way.

Rhett. She didn’t know if she should pity him for that, or listen to the ridiculous flutter at the base of her spine, that told her that she was in her very own, breathtaking story, about to live through adventure. But his first name was probably the reason no one in town knew his first name. She could totally understand if he wanted to keep _that_ a secret. Better to be the mysterious and dangerous Mr. Gold, than Rhett Gold. She liked his name. A lot. It rolled nicely from the tongue. And he was handsome (although she would never say so out loud, because she was pretty sure that his kind of handsome wasn’t conform with the general concept of handsome her friends possessed).

When she fell into her bed, after eating a bowl of cereals, she was still thinking about him and his name. And she couldn’t help but wonder what made him share the big secret that his first name was with her. After they almost had a fight. Belle was still amazed over her own bravery. Or her folly, whatever it was that made her stand up to him and call him out on his irrational behavior. She could tell that this was something completely new to him. He wasn’t used to people opposing him. He wasn’t used to someone seeing behind his cold façade, to someone talking to the insecure and lonely being behind that wall of scariness he presented the world. The look on his face when she called him rude – one of wonder and puzzlement – almost made her giggle. That would probably have tipped the scale against her, so she swallowed that down. She didn’t want him to feel mocked. And she was curious. What was it that unsettled him so much, what was it that turned him into a confused puppy that hid behind a scary snarl? Was it just having someone watching him in his home? She decided to watch him more closely the following day. Maybe she would understand, then…

Only that the next day, he was incredibly more reserved than before. When he opened the door, after she knocked, she faced Mr. Gold, the man she had faced on the first day of this deal, not the slightly more cordial version of him he had presented her later on.

“Miss French. I’m glad you didn’t decide to go back on the deal.” He stepped aside to let her in, and Belle wondered if he was…hurt? Because she hadn’t offered him her first name the evening before? Well, that was easy to find out.

“Why would I do that…Rhett?”

He winced, but he reigned himself in very quickly, and his expression became even more reserved. “Please don’t mock me, Miss French”, he said, and for one crazy heartbeat, Belle wanted to hug him and pat his hair (which looked incredibly soft and made her fingertips prickle with the want to touch it), and tell him that he shouldn’t be afraid. She did nothing of the sort.

“I guess you had a bad day yesterday. Happens to the best of us.” She shrugged out of her coat and placed it on a brass hook of his coat rack. “So, what are you going to cook today?”

She felt his stare on her, and he didn’t answer, as if he had not heard a thing she said. When she turned away from the rack and faced him, he cleared his throat and took a step back. “Pancakes with plums. Why do you assume I had a bad day?”

“Just pancakes? That doesn’t take two hours. And you acted as if you felt threatened by something, so I thought that something must have occurred to ruin your day.”

“There are pancakes and there are pancakes, Miss French, and nothing happened to ruin my day, you did that all by yourself.”

“Pancake is pancake, Rhett, and all I did was pointing out that your behavior wasn’t on its best. I’m not here to let you treat me like crap.” Without wanting to, she raised her voice, and he thrust his hands into the air and turned around, walking away and into the kitchen. Belle followed him, determined not to let him off the hook. Not that fast, anyway.

“There are pancakes and there are my pancakes. And I’m sorry if I made you feel like crap. That wasn’t my intention.” He sounded hoarse, and Belle could see how much the last part cost him. He was staring down on his hands, folded over the handle of his cane. Belle stared down at them, too, and wondered how this had happened, how they had started to fight. Again. Despite her resolve not to continue where they had left off the night before. She stepped closer and placed her hand on top of his, and he flinched. Looked at her as if she had lost her mind.

“I know, and you didn’t. Make me feel like crap. But you need to realize that it’s not a good idea to threaten people if you want them to like you.”

He still looked at her hand on his, and she could almost feel the urge to pull away itching beneath his skin. But he didn’t. “I don’t want people to like me. I want them to fear me.”

Belle tilted her head and tried to catch his gaze. “That’s not entirely true, is it?” she asked, and without realizing what she was doing, she painted little circles with her thumb on the back of his hand. His Adam’s apple bobbed up and down when he swallowed.

“I want you to like me”, he rasped, incredibly hoarse, and his voice sent heat straight to her lower belly. She let go of his hand as if it had burned her, trying to shove back the strange feeling prickling on her skin. It scared her a little with its intensity.

“Um…so what makes your pancakes so special?”

He narrowed his eyes at her, and his lips twitched in an effort to keep his disappointment from showing on his face. He failed, though. Belle could see as clearly as if it was written on his forehead that this was not the reaction he had hoped for. And she was sorry for that, wanted to reassure him, tell him that she did like him, somehow…But she kept silent. Just when had this deal become so deeply personal?

“The stuffing. It’s rather complicated to get a juicy filling into a pancake without the batter turning to rubber.” He turned away and started fumbling with his coffee machine. “Coffee?”

They were back to profanity, and Belle felt as if she had lost something. She shrugged it off. “Yes, that would be nice.”

They still had 64 days to go. Somehow they would find a way to act reasonably polite with each other. She watched, leaning against the kitchen counter, as he brewed her a cup of coffee, and then one for himself.

“Do you want me to read again while you make pancakes?” she asked, inhaling the steam rising out of her cup. Why couldn’t coffee taste as good as it smelled?

“No. It’s distracting and leads to me ruining the food.”

“Oh…ok. I didn’t realize that it’s so distracting. I guess it’s harder to follow the story if you have to concentrate on something else.”

Gold – somehow she didn’t manage to think of him as Rhett – placed his cup on the counter, very carefully, and looked at her, with an expression that pinned her in place like a mouse staring at a snake. “It’s not so much the content that is distracting, Miss French.”

“But you said yesterday…”

“I know what I said.” He cut her short, and Belle had to wet her lips. They felt as dry as paper, dry enough that his gaze could set them on fire like light falling through a lens. When he turned away, she was sure that it was in the very nick of time before she burst into flames.

“Just what exactly are you saying?”

“Nothing, Miss French.” He emphasized her name, and if Belle had been willing to get on a first name basis with him before, she decided now to never offer him her first name. She was not about to let him press her into anything just by acting like a spoiled child.

“Are you already tired of our deal?” she asked, quietly, but he jerked as if she had stabbed him, and he knocked over his coffee cup and hissed when the hot drink spilled over his hand. Belle rushed to his side, grasped his arm and pulled him to the sink, opening the cold water tap and letting it run over his skin. She didn’t let go of his hand, and he didn’t try to pull away.

“It’s not that severe”, he murmured, and only then did Belle realize how close they were. He was standing so close behind her that there was hardly room for a piece of paper, and she had clamped his arm between her ribcage and her arm in a vicious grip. His breath moved the hair at her neck and tickled over the shell of her ear. And without looking, she knew that his eyes were not on his hand, or the tap, but on her.

Slowly, careful, she let go of his arm and stepped aside, out of the hollow he had formed with his body. “I’m sorry…”

There was a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth, and Belle was transfixed by its beauty.

“At least now I know that you’re not completely indifferent.”

“What difference does it make? This is still a business arrangement. It doesn’t matter if I like you or not.” Belle took another step back and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, trying to look completely unfazed.

“To me it matters.”

“But why?”

“Because I don’t want to spend every evening the next three months with a person who detests me. I have enough of that in my daily life.” He dried his hands on a kitchen towel, and Belle noticed that his skin was hardly red.

“Then why make this deal at all? You didn’t ask me to like you. You asked to watch me eat.”

“True.”

Belle waited for him to continue, but he just looked at her, his brows furrowed, as if he was thinking about what exactly it was they were doing.

“Do you want to end our agreement?” she asked, holding her breath.

“No. A deal is a deal.”

Belle let out her breath. Somehow his arguments weren’t really logical. But before she was able to form a response, to get to the bottom of the whole thing, her phone started to buzz, shocking her nearly into stupor. Gold frowned at her, as if it was a personal insult to him if someone called her. His frown got even deeper when she took out her phone and answered it. Belle turned away from him.

“Yeah?”

“Hey, Greg here. You need to come to the hospital. Your dad fell of a ladder in the shop and broke his leg.”

“What?” Her stomach dropped to her knees, and her world started spinning. Her father fell of a ladder. He was injured. He could have broken his neck, for all she knew.

“It’s only his leg, but he was lucky. He hit his head, too, but the doctor says that it’s nothing to worry about. But you need to come and fetch him.”

“I’m on my way.” She hung up and tried to breathe steady enough for the bees on the edges of her vision to fly off. But the buzzing and humming just got louder and more persistent, until her legs gave out beneath her and she sank to the floor. Which was ridiculous. It was only a broken leg. But it meant he couldn’t work for a while. Greg would have to put in more hours, and that meant they had to pay him more. They would get behind with the rates of their loan, because regardless of how much Gold paid her, it was not enough to cover the rates completely.

“Belle?”

She flinched. She had forgotten him. And she didn’t even register his use of her first name. A hand touched her shoulder, soft, tentative, as if he was not sure if he was welcome in his effort to comfort her. She brushed his hand off and got back to her feet.

“I’m ok. I have to go.”

“What happened?” After she had brushed off his hand, he had stepped back, brought distance between them.

“My dad injured himself. I have to go to the hospital.” She didn’t ask if that was ok with him. He didn’t own her, and when she had an emergency, she could damn well go. But Gold didn’t try to hold her back. He followed her into the hallway, and watched silently as she slipped into her coat.

“Will I see you tomorrow?” he asked, and Belle halted, her hand already on the doorknob.

“I don’t know yet. I’ll call you.” She slipped out without another word. His car was no longer parked in front of the house, and Belle hesitated for a moment. It was a long way to walk to the hospital, and she couldn’t expect her father to walk home with her. She had not thought about that. Just when she wanted to turn back to knock again, the door opened and Gold stepped out, wearing a coat and the smile of a shark.

“You need someone to drive you to the hospital, I gather?”

“Where is your driver?”

“He doesn’t have to wait three hours in front of my house. The car is around the back, and Dove is doing the Lord knows what. Come, I’ll drive you.”

It was not how she’d have preferred to get to her father, but right now, Belle didn’t exactly care. She followed Gold around the house and climbed into his Cadillac, and she let him drive her. Her mind was too occupied with every possible scenario about how she would be able to save money, how she would be able to take care of her dad – she would have to move in with him for the time of his recuperation – to even attempt a conversation, and Gold didn’t press her. She thanked him when he let her out at the hospital, but she said nothing more. If he said something, she didn’t hear it, and she didn’t care.

Her dad had his leg already in a cast, and despite Greg’s announcement, she didn’t have to take him home right away. He would stay overnight.

“Oh dad, how did this even happen?” She grasped his hand, and rubbed gently over his bruised knuckles.

“I have no idea. I fell, and no one was there to catch me.”

Belle laughed through her tears, because even bruised and battered, her father thought he had to make a joke for her sake. He had never been funny, but Belle just couldn’t bring herself to tell him so. She had not even told him yet about her deal with Gold, afraid to upset her dad and cause him a heart attack, because she was pretty sure that he’d like the idea of “creepy old Gold” paying her to watch her eat even less than she herself.

“You have to ask Greg to take over the tour over the next six weeks. I can’t drive.” Moe spoke quietly, and Belle knew that he was harboring just the same worries as she herself.

“I know, dad.”

“And extra hours at the shop.”

“I know, dad. Maybe I can take over some hours, too.” She would have to close the library during that time. Which meant less money.

“I wish you and Greg were already married. Then we wouldn’t have to pay him.” Her father looked down at their clasped hands, and missed the grimace flashing across Belle’s face. It was always the same. Somehow he had gotten the idea that it would solve all their problems if she just married Greg Gaston.

“Yeah, but a wedding costs a small fortune, and maybe we wouldn’t have to pay him, but part of the money you made would be his. It wouldn’t be any better that way.” Apart from that, Belle didn’t want to marry Greg. They dated a few times, yes, but that was all. They were worlds apart.

Moe frowned, and pouted, a little like a kid that didn’t get the shiny pink pony from the top shelf in a toy store. It was always like that. Belle tried to reason with him, but Moe was immune to it. And now he was on painkillers, too, which didn’t make him any more prone to listen to reason. Belle sighed.

“I’ll come back tomorrow to get you home, dad.” She kissed him on his forehead, and he smiled. His smiles were always a little quivering around the edges, insecure. He was so lost without her.

Outside, she met Greg, who had waited for her.

“It could have been worse. He was lucky that he only broke his leg, and not his back or his skull.” Count on Greg to paint a worst case scenario. Belle inhaled deeply, filling her lungs with the sharp smell of disinfectant and that faint smell of something gone bad that always lingered in a hospital, and plastered a smile on her face.

“Yes, Greg, that was lucky.”

“Shall I drive you home?” He shifted a little on his feet, as if he didn’t feel completely comfortable in his skin – or with that question – and he wrung his huge hands, looking a little like a confused gorilla. Belle reminded herself that he was a nice guy, and that it wasn’t his fault that she couldn’t bring herself to like him.

“That would be nice.” Apparently it was her fate to have herself driven around town that day. But when she exited the hospital with Greg and found Gold waiting there, with his car, she decided that her fate that day was decidedly bitchy.

“Miss French. I thought you would need someone to drive you home.” Belle was glad that he reverted to Miss French, because she was only to aware of Greg’s eyes on her, big as pasta plates. But before she could answer – and decline – Greg jumped in, broadening his chest and looking twice as big as Mr. Gold.

“She’s with me.”

Gold didn’t look at Greg, but his face twitched, and Belle realized how his words sounded. As if they were together. As if…

“Well, I see, my help is no longer needed. See you tomorrow, Miss French.” Gold nodded at her and turned away, and Belle imagined to see the tension in his shoulders as he set out his cane and limped away. She let out another heavy sigh. He had not even waited for her to say something.

“What does he mean?” Greg asked, ripping her out of her thoughts, though she wasn’t even sure what she had been thinking about. Probably she had just watched Gold, and her mind had created an empty space between her ears.

“Nothing. Listen, can you help me fetch a few things from my flat, so I can set up camp at dad’s while he’s recuperating?”

Of course he could. Greg was always ready to help. If she asked him if he would carry her couch to her dad’s, he would do it without a second thought. If she asked him if he could put on a collar and take over a shift as watchdog in her yard, he would ask her if she wanted him to be a Rottweiler or a Doberman. And after he drove her to her flat, and then to her father’s flat above the flower shop, and agreed to work extra hours, Belle felt terrible for not liking him more. Felt terrible to compare his sweet, unthinking offers to help to Gold’s nasty habit of doing nothing that didn’t bring him benefits. And while she sat in her father’s kitchen at his table covered with green plastic cloth, eating cold ravioli out of a can, she felt terrible admitting to herself that she liked Gold far more than she liked Greg.    


	8. Day 7: Chicken with Parmesan and Garlic crust and Honeyed Carrots and Oranges

Gold ignored the shards of broken porcelain in his living room, ignored the unhinged cabinet door and the broken glass panel in it when he entered his kitchen the next morning. He ignored the crunching sound when he stepped onto some of the debris, and he didn’t even look down at it. He was good at ignoring. And later that day, his cleaning lady would come and take care of the mess he had created, and she would never say a thing about it. When he would return, it would be as if it never was. He could pretend that he was completely unfazed by the fact that little Miss French had a boyfriend. Or a gorilla. Probably both. He clenched his teeth and knocked over the last vase standing when he imagined that giant lying between her legs, pumping into her delicate form with the force of a jackhammer. The vase shattered with a completely unsatisfactory clank. He hated the guy.

He hated the guy, but he hated the idea that she actually loved the brute even more. Nevertheless, after returning and turning his living room into a wreckage, he made the pancakes he had planned, and packed them neatly into plastic containers. Now he took those containers and headed for the library.

Belle looked a little distressed when he planted his containers in front of her nose on the front desk.

“What is that?” she asked, and he allowed himself a cruel little smirk.

“That, my dear, is your dinner from yesterday. Though we can just as well call it breakfast now.”

“The pancakes? You want me to eat them now?” She paled, as if he had announced that he planned on gavaging her.

“Did you already have breakfast, Miss French?” He raised a brow, knowing that it made him look intimidating, and alluded to his sinister side.

“I had one, yes.” She looked at his containers as if they held a poisonous fruit. Maybe she would jump if he nudged them closer.

“Then you just keep it for later when you’re hungry. I’m not here to watch you eat anyway.”

“You’re not?” Ah, there was a squeak in her voice, one that told him that she was equally relieved and nervous now.

“No, Miss French. It’s Friday. I’m here to give you your paycheck. And collect the rate of the loan. I suppose your father is still in the hospital?”

“Yes, he is.” She looked down, speaking with a low voice that almost got him. But he hardened the soft spot she had created instantly. There was no use in letting her close enough to peek inside him and see the mushy stuff he was made off.

“Too bad.” He extended the envelope with her check and waited for her to take it. She didn’t look at it.

“I don’t have the money here. I need to go to the flower shop later. Can’t I bring it tonight when I come for…dinner?”

“No. I don’t like to do business exchanges at home.” Still he was extending the envelope, and still she didn’t take it, though he could tell that she very much wanted to. She had a hard time not looking at it, a hard time to push back the fear he would take it away again – or was it greed? He considered to pull it back, just to watch her lunge at his money.

“Maybe you should just keep this then. It’s slightly ridiculous to give me money only so that I can give it back to you.”

“That’s the deal, dearie. I’m disappointed that you don’t have the money ready. Did you think I’d cut you some slack because I allow you to my home and cook for you? That’s not what I do.”

“Obviously. But I remember you telling me that you’d like me to like you. I can tell you that this isn’t the way.”

Her words kindled the itching in his veins, the anger that not even the thrashing of his furniture had been able to erase, and he reacted with much more heat than he normally would. He liked to keep his transactions cool, calm. Losing his temper didn’t help him to keep the upper hand.

“Well, that was before”, he hissed, and she looked taken aback.

“Before what?”

“Never mind. So, why isn’t your boyfriend taking care that you eat enough?” Her eyebrows shot up, and he thought that maybe he should have tried to hide the sting of it better, hide how much it bothered him that she was someone’s girlfriend – even when, logically, it shouldn’t matter to him more than a fly zooming by on a hot day. But this gorilla of hers didn’t look out for her the way _he_ would look out for her, didn’t take care that she stayed healthy and sane, or he wouldn’t have allowed her to skip meals in the first place.

“First of all, it’s nobody’s job to look out for me. I’m my own person, I can very well take responsibility for my life. Neither you nor anyone else has a say in it.” She nudged the plastic containers with the pancakes back at him, and took the envelope from his hand, glaring at him with her eyes narrowed and her nostrils flared. She looked just as heated as he felt.

“And second of all?” he asked, since she let her tirade end in a void, and he felt as if there had to come something else. She drew a deep breath, squared her shoulders , and plastered a smile so sweet on her face that he wanted to vomit.

“There is none. That’s all.”

Gold felt disappointment settle at the pit of his stomach. Somehow, a distant part of him had hoped she would deny that the gorilla was her boyfriend. However, she did not. And he realized that he was acting like an idiot. Even if she wasn’t someone’s girlfriend, that didn’t make his chances any bigger. He was an old git, not a good person, and why he even wanted a chance with her, he couldn’t tell. Somehow, she had been so kind, so gentle, like no one had been to him in a long time, and he wanted to breathe her in, wanted to kiss her and latch onto her skin like a leech. Yes, he felt like one of those disgusting little bloodsuckers, black and slimy and wriggling through the mud in despair.

“I’ll come back to the flower shop later then.” He had to press the words out of his tight throat, and he didn’t even notice that he had done what he never did and given her more time, until he was at Granny’s to collect their rent.

When he entered the flower shop later, after almost finishing his rounds, he wished he hadn’t done it. Obviously, the gorilla worked for her father. And Belle was not there.

“She left this for you, Mr. Gold, before she went to pick up Moe. Her father, that is.” The gorilla extended another envelope towards him, and Gold almost tore it open when he ripped it out of the dirty hands of the man. Imagining those soiled hands on Belles skin, with those filthy green nails and the thick calluses from handling thorny greenery, made him ill.

“I know who Moe is.” He couldn’t keep the contempt out of his voice, but the gorilla just stared at him, with a blank and sickening polite face. Of course, he had Belle. He didn’t need to feel threatened. He didn’t need to feel as if he was not enough. “Just tell her my driver will pick her up at ten to four sharp.”

“Ok…” Obviously the gorilla had no idea what he meant, but Gold didn’t care. He headed for the door, wanting to leave this place before the urge to smash things with his cane grew too strong, but the gorilla – he needed to find out his name – called after him. “Belle moved in with her dad to help him with getting back on his feet…so your driver has to pick her up here.”

Gold barely nodded in response, grinding his teeth in an attempt not to yell in frustration. That bastard was so damn sure of Belle that he didn’t even need to ask what was going on with her and Gold. That must be true love. Why did he have such a hard time to believe then that she actually loved this brute?

Only when he was out on the street did he realize where his thoughts had wandered off – again – and he wondered what was wrong with him. Why couldn’t he think of her as just another deal, another agreement? Why did that question always sneak in, the question of love and sympathy and the image of her creamy skin beneath his palms? He needed to reevaluate what exactly it was he wanted from her. Judging by the way his blood boiled, and his bones cracked and splintered at the thought of her legs wrapped around a man that wasn’t him, he had a serious problem. She didn’t belong to him. He had not the least claim on her. She wasn’t his. Belle French was not an object, she was a person. She was not a possession of his, and he never wanted her to be. So why the jealousy?

He still had no answer when he was back at his house. He tipped the cleaning lady generously enough to secure her loyalty and her silence, even when he could tell that today, she looked a lot more suspicious at him than before. He hadn’t smashed anything in a long time…it must have been before her time. He checked the fridge to see if she had done his grocery shopping just as instructed, and checked the receipt and the purse with money he provided. He was always this thorough, and he didn’t allow discrepancies. She knew this, of course, and there was never anything amiss, but he liked to keep her fear of him alive. As long as everyone feared him, he could live in peace and quiet.

But Belle didn’t fear him. She talked back, pointed out flaws in his logic and demanded things no one else dared to ask of him. She wanted to know what he thought, wanted to know his motivation, and even though it was highly uncomfortable, he couldn’t help but wanting to bare his soul before her. Which made her dangerous.

When she arrived at four, he had resolved to presenting her with his cold side, to keep their relation as superficial and professional as possible. It was only day seven, and she somehow managed to wriggle under his armor of ice and logic, burying tiny sharp teeth in that black space inside his chest cavity and making him itch and hurt with something he had exterminated so long ago. And from where she poked into that blackness, weakness spread like a disease. Longing for warmth.

“How is your father?” he asked her, and she bit her lip and rolled her eyes.

“Grumpy. For now he settled on the couch, watching TV and yelling instructions at Greg down the stairs, but from time to time Greg gets a little confused because the TV is so loud and he’s not always sure if it’s my dad or someone in one of those cringe worthy telenovelas my dad loves so much yelling at him. Poor Greg.”

Gold couldn’t exactly share her sympathy for her gorilla, so he made a noncommittal sound and shrugged. “So that means he’s as fine as he can be.”

“Better, I’d say. When does he ever have an excuse to lie on the couch and indulge himself in soap operas and telenovelas?”

“And he didn’t object to your…appointment with me?”

She blushed at that, and looked down, unwilling to meet his gaze. Interesting. If she was his daughter, he would certainly not let her associate herself with someone like him. He supposed that Moe French felt the same way, so it was safe to assume that she hadn’t told him about the deal. Her next words confirmed his suspicion.

“I didn’t tell him about this.” She sounded as if she was doing something forbidden, and it sent a prickle down his spine. Before he could ponder that feeling for too long, he turned away and started to rummage through his kitchen. He couldn’t gain anything by relishing the shame he caused her to feel. He almost was ashamed himself for enjoying it so much to cause her discomfort. Not that he needed another proof that he wasn’t a good person. While he was placing pots on the stove and set up bowls and oven dishes, his cutting board and knives, she looked around, and out of the corner of his eyes, he saw confusion flit over her face.

“Something is different…Wasn’t there much more knick-knack around yesterday? Did you rearrange your living room?”

He bristled a bit at her categorizing the pieces of his collection as knick-knack – especially since some of the porcelain he shattered in his frenzy had been quite valuable – but he was stunned, too, that she even noticed. And it was his turn, now, to be ashamed. He could hardly tell her that the discovery of her having a boyfriend sent him into a frenzy, seething with rage, and led to the complete devastation of his living room. He could hardly admit that to himself.

“I rearranged, yes”, he said, and hoped it would put an end to the matter.

“It’s nice. So, what are you going to cook today?”

He watched her for a moment before answering, but there was no deception on her face, no secret sign that she suspected him of withholding anything, and he relaxed. “Chicken with garlic and parmesan crust and honeyed carrots and oranges.”

“Oh my god, that sounds delicious. Is there anything I can do to help?”

His mouth was dry as paper all of a sudden. He didn’t want her in his kitchen, because then he wanted to do things that were completely inappropriate. Like feeding her with bits and bites to let her taste his creations. Or letting her lick the chocolate cream for the dessert off his fingers. He drew in a sharp breath and tried to come up with a reason why he didn’t need her help. She watched him, her head tilted to the side, and she looked so _eager_. That look alone almost ended him.

“I have to start with the dessert first…You could crush the cookies while I skin the hazelnuts.” Yes, expose her to cookie crumbs, maybe there would be one or two to pick off her later on…He squeezed his eyes shut and tried to push back that image while he handed her a bowl and a box of chocolate wafer biscuit.

“What’s the dessert?” She asked while she opened the box and started to crumble the cookies into the bowl. He couldn’t look away from her fingers and the brown crumbs sticking to them. He wanted to lick them away.

“Hazelnut ganache tarte…”

“You _are_ trying to fatten me up.” But she smiled, and he had to smile back. His body reacted to her smiles without his permission, and even if he wanted to, he couldn’t suppress his answering smile.

“Only a little. You are quite thin.”

“Not for long, if you continue to spoil me with one delicious meal after another.”

“Good thing then that we meet only once a day.”

She giggled, and the sound rippled down his spine and pulsed like a swarm of bees in his stomach. He concentrated on the task ahead and placed the hazelnuts in the oven to toast them. He worked quietly, because every exchange with her increased the risk of him confusing some of the steps and ending up with something impossible to eat.

“I’m finished with the cookies”, she chirped, and Gold very nearly passed out when she licked the crumbs off her fingers. He hoped for his own sake that she didn’t catch the look that must have crossed his face. He had no idea how to explain it if she did.

Gold tried very hard not to look at her for the rest of the preparations, especially when he filled the chocolate cream on top of the baked tarte. But he couldn’t resist to give her the bowl with the remnants of the cream, and for the life of him, he couldn’t look away as she used her fingertips to clean out the bowl and lap away the remaining cream. Glimpsing the tip of her pink tongue alone would provide him with enough sticky wet dreams to die happy and sated, even if he never should touch another human being again. But when she lifted her gaze from the bowl up to him, a smudge of chocolate on the corner of her mouth, he hurried to look away, putting the tarte into the fridge.

“Maybe you want to refresh yourself a little. You have chocolate on your face.” There was no way in hell he would take that matter in his own hands again. Touching her would snap his threadbare composure and lead to him doing something stupid. That was a risk he wasn’t willing to take.

“Oh. Ok. Be right back.” He imagined to hear a little disappointment in her voice, and he had to close his eyes and inhale deeply to get rid of that odd feeling burbling in his lungs.

The rest of the preparations took up much less time, and when the chicken and the carrots were in the oven, they drank coffee, and she told him about the details of her father’s broken leg. She didn’t talk about Greg, and he didn’t ask her. But he could hear the strain in her voice, could see worries weighing her down. However, she did not ask him to lower the rates of her father’s loan while they had to scrape everything together to pay Greg’s extra hours, and the medical bills that were to come. Gold was not sure how he’d react if she _did_ ask him.

Belle was constantly worrying her bottom lip, driving him close to insanity with it, and he was more than glad when he finally was able to serve her dish to her. The chicken smelled like heaven, as did the carrots, and when he watched her taking her first bite, the flicker of pure delight on her face shot right into his loins. He had to swallow down the lump in his throat before he was able to eat himself.

“God, this is so much better than my ravioli yesterday”, she said, and he imagined that her face must look exactly like this when she was close to orgasm. He tried to shake off those images, but it was hard to do while looking at her lighting up with every bite she took, watching the rosy glow rising on her skin, coloring her cheeks with a soft flush, and watching her flutter her lashes while savoring the food he had prepared for her. It was almost obscene.

“You made yourself ravioli last night?” he asked, as hoarse as if he’d burnt his throat, and she snorted.

“God no. I ate them cold out of the can.”

“That’s…disgusting.”

“Yeah. But I was hungry, after the whole thing with going to the hospital and fetching everything I needed to move in with dad…”

“How are you going to explain your daily absence to him?” His question deepened the color on her cheeks.

“I don’t know yet. He’s going to freak if I tell him about this deal, so I’m not gonna tell him.” She looked so incredibly young in that moment that it flushed every dirty thought out of his system.

“It’s not as if you’re selling yourself. You’re not doing anything immoral.” As much as he wished it were different, it wasn’t. All they did was cooking and eating.

“Yeah, I don’t think he will see much of a difference there. You’re watching me eat, and no matter what your motivations are, it will look perverse to my dad. And I can’t even blame him.”

“So you still think I have an underlying motive.” It was a statement, not a question, and the way she avoided his eyes told him that he was right.

“Ever heard of feeders?”

His fork slipped out of his grip and clattered to the floor. “Miss French, it’s not a fetish of mine to watch someone eat. Or make someone eat. Or make someone gain weight. This is not the point. I thought I made that clear before.”

“I’m sorry. I’m just having a hard time figuring out what exactly the point is, then, and you’re not making it exactly easy. Each time when I think I finally get it and figured it out, it is as if I’m facing someone completely new. You offered me your first name, and I thought it really _is_ about the company, and you’re just lonely and not very skilled at expressing it, but the next day you’re as cold as a corpse. And the next moment you tell me you want me to like you. And then the next moment you start a fight over nothing. I’m just confused.”

“Well, dearie, I’m a difficult man to like. I don’t think that this comes as a surprise to you, does it?” He bent down and picked up his fork. They were finished eating anyway, so he rose and took their plates to the kitchen. He had no idea how to answer her. Was there even a question?

“Do you want dessert, or do you prefer to leave right away?”

“I helped making it, so I’m not leaving before I had a piece of that tarte.”

Gold almost jumped, because he had not noticed how she followed him into the kitchen. “You’re quite adept at sneaking around, dearie.”

She tilted her head and stepped closer, forcing him to back against the fridge. “I’m adept at a lot of things. Figuring out people, for one. But you’re a tricky case.”

“I take that as a compliment.” He turned around and took the tarte out of the fridge, and he was determined to ignore her snorting.

They ate their dessert in the kitchen, leaning on opposite sides of the room, and Gold felt as if he was forced to share a cage with a tiger. Belle emanated something decidedly aggressive that day. Not even his hazelnut ganache tarte – that tasted like something right out of chocolate heaven and melted on the tongue, starting out cold and slowly warming – could soothe her. She placed her empty dessert plate on the counter and watched him with narrowed eyes as he finished his piece of heaven. Her gaze made him clumsy.

“You’re looking at me as if you hoped I’d explode”, he said when he, too, was finished, and she raised her brows.

“What gave it away?” she asked, and he chuckled. But the laugh got stuck in his throat when she pushed herself away from the counter and stepped to him, lifting her hand and touching his lip, wiping away a bit of chocolate. When she licked the chocolate from her thumb – just as he had done on their first meal date – he was sure his heart jumped out of his chest and burst like a water balloon. Had she felt like this when he was the one to touch her?

He had to clear his throat before he was able to speak again, but his voice sounded more like the growl of a hoarse bear than a human. “What are you doing?”

“Just wiping away chocolate. I thought that’s something we do.”

He clawed his hands into the countertop behind him to keep himself from grabbing her and yanking her to his chest, but he couldn’t look away from her. It was as if his gaze was stitched to her lips, as if his whole being was sewed to her smile, and he was sure he had forgotten how to breathe. But when she shrugged and stepped back, his body remembered it, and he gasped and sucked in air as if he was drowning. It was embarrassing, and he felt his cheeks burn. Right now, she could fry eggs on his face, if she wanted to, and the fine smile tugging at her lips told him that she noticed.

“It was delicious, Rhett, and I’m really looking forward to tomorrow.”

He was not so sure about that, because he had no idea if he would survive another night like that. But he would not even cancel their deal if he knew for sure that it would be his death. When he helped her into her coat, inhaling the scent of her hair, and watched as she climbed into the waiting car, he knew with absolute clarity that he either had to find a way to eradicate this crazy attraction, or find a way to get rid of her boyfriend. Maybe he would even find a way to make her leave that gorilla on her own…

Nah. He wasn’t nice enough. He was far better at scaring people away.    

       


	9. Day 8: Leftover Hazelnut Ganache Tarte

The TV was blaring through her father’s flat, and Belle pulled one of her cushions over her head and tried to shut it out. She knew exactly that her dad wanted her to get up and make him breakfast, because this was how he had always done it: If Belle wanted to stay in bed for just another 30 minutes, he upped the volume of his radio or TV until she didn’t bear it any more. It always worked.

She threw away the sheets and stomped into the living room. Moe lay on the couch and watched her with a mixture of nervousness and smugness, but when she wrenched the remote out of his hands and turned out the TV, he pouted like a little kid.

“Hey, I wanted to see that! Sofia was about to declare her love for Rodrigo, who is married to Maria…”

Belle cut him off. “I don’t care, dad. I have a busy day ahead, and I would have appreciated another 30 minutes of sleep. I have to open the library, and in the afternoon I have to look after the flower shop, and at four…” She reigned herself in. She couldn’t tell her dad about that.

“Will you be gone again? Where are you going, honey?”

“I have another job, dad. So that we can pay back your loan.” She hoped that would put an end to it, but of course it didn’t.

“You don’t need to do that, honey! Tell me about this job.”

Belle pretended she didn’t hear her dad and dragged herself into the kitchen to prepare her father a bowl of cereal. He really was like a kid. Belle flinched and spilled the milk all over the kitchen table when her father shouted at the top of his lungs through the apartment.

“Greg!”

“Oh great.” She cursed under her breath, remembering that her father had once washed out her mouth with soap when she had used a bad word (not that it ever did any good, the only thing she learned was not to swear when he was around), and plopped a spoon into the bowl.

“Dad, you can’t call Greg now, I’m still in my nighty”, she said, when she brought him his cereal to the couch, where he spent his night and days.

“Oh, I’m sorry, I will go back down then.” Of course Greg was already there. When her father called, his knight in shining armor hurried to his side in a heartbeat.

“No, no, Greg, that’s alright. Belle doesn’t mind”, her father said, and Belle decided to take the batteries out of his remote when she’d leave for the library.

“I don’t?” she asked, but her father didn’t even look at her.

“She took away my remote, and I wanted to see if Rodrigo decides for Sofia or Maria…”

“Oh my God!” Belle threw her head back and her arms into the air, rolling her eyes at her dad. “Either way, I can tell you that it won’t end happy. If he decides for Sofia, Maria will have a terrible accident and die, and he will never be the same, eaten up by regret because he blames himself – Maria was drunk because her heart was broken – and his relationship with Sofia will end tragically because of that. If he decides for Maria, Sofia will have a terrible accident, which she will survive, but she will be disfigured. Rodrigo will leave Maria to be at Sofia’s side, but Sofia will never forgive him, because she blames him for the accident, and in the end, when she is bitter and her hatred has destroyed all their lives, he will go back to Maria. Only it will be too late, because he will find Maria dying of an overdose in their former house, and she will die in his arms and they will tell each other that they always loved each other, and that’s the end.”

Moe and Greg stared at her as if she was standing there naked, with a wig, singing an aria. After a moment, Greg cleared his throat and looked from her to Moe, and there was a faint red glow on his cheeks, as if he was somehow embarrassed.

“I think she doesn’t believe in love”, he said, and her dad presented his best imitation of indignation.

“That was not very nice of you, Belle. I wanted to find out for myself.”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake!” Belle turned on her heels to go to her room and get dressed, not caring that she granted Greg a good look at her backside. She heard Greg and Moe snicker, and now she was really annoyed. When she came back to the living room, after dressing, they sat on the couch and watched Rodrigo’s drama, sharing a bowl of cereals.

“Aren’t you here for work, Greg?” she asked, and he jumped off the couch as if she had stung him.

“Right…I cleaned up the milk in the kitchen, and Moe wanted another bowl of cereals…” He trailed off.

“Maybe I should hire you as his nurse. Sadly, we don’t have the money for that.” She took her coat, ready to leave, but her dad held her back once more.

“Belle, you didn’t tell me about the other job. What is it you’re doing?” He looked at her over the back of the couch, and Belle stared at its threadbare covering of pea-soup-green corduroy and hoped it would somehow provide her with a story.

“I’m cleaning”, she said at last.

“For Mr. Gold?”

Shoot, she had forgotten about Greg. Her father paled, and if his leg hadn’t been broken, she was sure he would have jumped up, grabbed her and shaken her.

“You’re working for that criminal?” he roared, and Belle closed her eyes and thanked Greg silently for making it even more complicated.

“I’m only cleaning his house, dad.” Sadly, Greg was not yet finished with messing up her life.

“I never heard of someone who sends a driver to pick up his cleaning lady.”

“What?” her father yelled, and Belle narrowed her eyes at Greg, who finally realized that he was not helping her.

“Thank you very much, Greg, that’s just what I needed. So now, if you excuse me, I have to work. You have to work, too, I believe.”

But before she left, ignoring her father’s ramblings, she took away his remote and took out the batteries. She was that mean.

“Don’t you just walk out on me, young lady, I have a right to know what that pervert is doing with you! Greg, I need my batteries! What shall I do, all day, without the TV?” Her father sounded increasingly whiny, but Belle just ignored it. Greg slinked down the stairs behind her, his ears tucked between his shoulders, and a persistent shade of red on his face.

“I’m sorry, Belle, I didn’t mean to sell you out”, he said, when they arrived at the foot of the stairs.

Belle sighed. “It’s ok. I didn’t want to tell him at all, but I need a reason to be gone every day from four to seven.”

“So, are you really cleaning for Mr. Gold?” He sounded genuinely interested, and Belle wondered once more what was wrong with her. He was so nice. Not the sharpest knife in the kitchen, but she was sure that a lot of chefs would be glad to have him as their knife. So why not she?

“No, I’m not cleaning for Mr. Gold. We have another arrangement.” She left it at that, and hoped he wouldn’t ask further.

“Oh. Ok. Just be careful, ok? That man has some issues…”

God, it was revolting how nice Greg was. He really cared for her, and didn’t judge her, and why on earth did she have to fall in love with someone as nasty as Mr. Gold…When she realized what she had just thought, her insides heaved, and she had to grab the banister of the narrow stairs to keep herself upright.

“I will be careful. Thank you, Greg.” She smiled up at him, but it was a quivering smile, and she was sure he had to see the tears threatening to spill over her cheeks, but he smiled back and noticed…nothing. Which was for the better, really. But when Belle opened the library, she was still in shock over her realization.

On the other hand, there was not much to be shocked about. She always thought him to be ridiculously attractive. And spending so much time with him, getting to know him, and get glimpses of the man behind his façade – the lonely, insecure man that had no clue how to act around other people – well, it didn’t come out of the blue. And when she thought about the way he acted towards her, how he reacted when she came closer, how breathless he quivered when she touched him, she suspected that he felt similar. Belle had never really dated (although she had lost her virginity in a parking lot on the backseat of a car, terribly clichéd and a memory she didn’t really need), and never felt this way before, she hoped she was reading the signs correctly. But since she worked at the library, there had to be a book, right?

The books weren’t of any help, though, and when she closed the library at noon and went home (to make her dad something to eat, and _maybe_ give him back his remote), she was none the wiser. She would have to find out for herself. If only real life wasn’t that scary.

In the afternoon, she opened the flower shop, while Greg took over the tour to deliver bouquets, and she hoped he would be back before Gold’s driver came to pick her up. She wanted to shower, and to pick a nice dress (and yes, nice underwear), something she hadn’t done before. The realization that there was more that drew her to Gold than just a deal made her want to look nicer than usual. It also made her far more anxious than usual, and when the driver did pick her up, she was jittery and antsy, and she clawed her painted nails into the leather seat of his car, and smoothed out her dress every fifteen seconds or so. It was a little like driving to prom, or to a slaughter. Yes, probably more the latter.

When she knocked, and he opened the door, she was sure she was falling down a very high cliff, awaited by needle-sharp rocks at the bottom, and she tried to push back the fear with a deep breath. Not that it helped.

“Miss French”, he greeted her, and Belle tried to smile.

“It’s Belle”, she said as she slipped out of her coat and handed it to him, and the look that crossed his face, quick and almost invisible, warmed her heart. He was happy, but he fought back the smile and raised his eyebrows instead.

“What happened? Did I win you over somehow?”

“It probably has to do with your dessert from yesterday.”

He couldn’t suppress his smile any longer, and it fluttered in Belle’s insides and tickled her under her tongue. It was a strange feeling.

“Well, I hoped you wouldn’t be able to resist that. It’s still some left, so if you want more of it later…”

He sounded so hopeful that Belle giggled. “You don’t have to bribe me with dessert.”

“Why would I need to bribe you? I pay you.”

Well, that put a damper on her, and Belle sobered up. “Right.” She stalked out of the hallway and into the kitchen. He followed her, and every thump of his cane was like a question mark to her: _What were you thinking? How can you even like him? Why is he so_ …She didn’t find a word for it, and it dulled her mood even more.

“What are you cooking today?” she asked, at the same time that he asked “How are you today?”

They stared at each other, waiting for the other one to answer. Then he smiled. “Since we have a little time at our hands, I’m going to make you coffee, and you tell me about your day. How is living with your father?”

Belle snorted. “Nothing short of a nightmare. I will survive, yes, but I guess I’ll be changed forever.”

“I’m sure he loves you.” He placed a cup of coffee in front of her on the counter, and Belle was distracted by his hands and his perfectly manicured nails. In fact, she was so transfixed by their beauty that she almost missed his next words. “I know I would.”

“Would what?” She looked up, and wondered if there really was a blush on his cheekbones – or if she was imagining it.

“Nothing. I’m cooking roasted curry salmon with tomatoes today. It’s fast and easy, so we can go slow about it.”

“Slow is good”, she said, and instantly regretted it. Oh god, where was her brain? “Fast is good, too”, she added, only to realize that, if anything, it sounded even worse now. And his gaze on her was almost like that of a shocked puppy that realized for the first time in its life that water was wet. But maybe she just imagined that. He cleared his throat.

“Well, there is a time for either of it. Sometimes it needs to be slow, and sometimes it needs to be fast.”

Belle burst out laughing and clapped her hands to her mouth.

“Is everything alright? Did I say something funny, Miss French?”

“Belle”, she corrected him, but she sounded as if someone was strangling her. “I think I just…I haven’t eaten all day. I’m a little lightheaded.”

He went to the fridge and fetched the tarte from the previous day, and before she could protest, he served her a small slice on a dessert plate with a flowery blue design on it.

“Eat. Please.” He looked at her with warm eyes, a little worried even, and Belle tried to smile at him. He watched her as she took the first bite, but as far as she could tell, there was nothing beyond genuine worry. “You look at me as if you were still afraid I’d eat you.”

Belle quickly averted her eyes. “Well, that’s what dad fears.”

“You told him?”

“No, not really. I told him that I took on another job as a cleaning lady, and Greg blurted out that it is for you.”

For a few seconds, he was absolutely silent, and Belle looked up again. “Ah. Greg”, he said then, and he creased his nose as if he smelled something bad. Belle didn’t know what to say, so she ate her tarte silently. He sounded almost as if he was jealous. But that would mean…

She managed to drop the last bite of her tarte just before she reached her lips, and in her attempt to catch it, she smeared chocolate cream over her chin and neck and…uh, yes, her cleavage. Absolutely unintentional.

“Uh, shoot, that…” She avoided his eyes and grimaced, but she plucked the last crumb of the tarte from her collarbone and popped it into her mouth, in slow motion, and quite sure that he was watching her. “I guess I should go to the bathroom…”

He was silent for too long, and Belle began to feel uncomfortable, too obvious and terribly sleazy in her attempt at seduction. Obviously that worked only in telenovelas. But when she wanted to squeeze past him, his hand shot forward, stopping short of her upper arm, not quite touching her. Belle looked up, meeting his eyes, and she knew then that she hadn’t been mistaken.

“Let me”, he whispered, hoarse, as if his throat was blocked, and his hand breezed up to her chin, never quite making contact with her skin. Only when she swallowed, and nodded, his fingertips touched to her chin, and he tilted her head up. He leaned closer, without breaking eye-contact, as if he wanted to make sure that she really was agreeing to his touch, as if he feared she would step back any moment. Belle held her breath as his lips touched her jaw, warm, soft, as he licked the chocolate cream from her skin. He kissed away the crumbs and smudges of cream on her throat, and her collarbones, and his tongue was warm on her skin, his lips so gentle…Belle began to tremble, sucked in her stomach with the sudden rush of heat flooding her, and he drew back.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean…I…” God, he was so hoarse, so afraid that she trembled because she was afraid, and she lifted her hand and cupped his cheek and licked her lips in her search for words.

“It’s ok. I want that. I did that on purpose…”

He smiled and turned his face into her palm, pressed his lips to her wrist for a moment, and Belle bit her lips to muffle her sigh when he licked over that tender spot on the inside of her wrist.

“I noticed. It wasn’t very subtle”, he said, and leaned forward once more, pressing his lips open and wet to her collarbone, kissing his way up her throat. Just before he reached her jaw once more, he sucked in a little skin, and Belle gasped and sank back against the counter, grabbing the countertop for support, since she didn’t trust her knees anymore. He followed her, leaned closer, wrapped his arm around her to support her and press her to his body, while he kissed along her jaw towards her lips. Belle’s world started spinning, started to drown in the shivers his warm mouth on her sent over her skin, and Belle wanted it to never stop.

Finally his lips found hers, tender, as if he didn’t dare to kiss her, and Belle sighed against him, and kissed him reckless and hungry and without reserve. There were times for slow and steady. And there were times for fast and hard. And now she wanted to make him hers, wanted to take his lips, and him, wanted to know him with every fiber. She buried her hands in his hair and pulled him closer, and he complied, pressed himself to her as if he needed her to breathe for him, as if she was his lungs, as if he needed to feel her heart beat against him. Belle bit into his lower lip, and didn’t let go at once when he pulled back. When she did let go, Rhett licked over his lip, and growled.

“I should have given you something more to eat, I think. You still seem hungry.”

“I am. For you.” Her words were daring, and never before had she been this…hungry. Greedy. But she wanted him, and wanted him now, so she grabbed his hand and pulled him with her into the living room, pushed him down onto the couch. His Adam’s apple bobbed when he swallowed, and he almost squeaked when she straddled his lap.

“Belle, what…”

“Shhh.” She kissed him again, pushed her tongue between his lips, met his, and pressed her lips hard to his until his head fell back against the back of the couch and he bared his throat to her. He moaned into her mouth, and grabbed her hips, pulling her even closer. Belle tingled all over, her skin, her bones, everything tingled with the feeling of having him so close, and she left his mouth and pressed her lips to his throat, grazed over the slight stubble there, barely noticeable and yet scratchy enough to feel so sexy beneath her lips and her tongue.

She didn’t care for the chocolate stains she left on his tie when she pulled open the perfect knot, and neither did he. She kissed every inch of skin she uncovered, and his hips bucked beneath her when she reached the edge of his undershirt and planted a tiny bite there, letting her feel the amount of his arousal. He was hard, so hard, and Belle grinded against him, making them both groan with longing and frustration. She broke away, panting, and cupped his face, looked into his eyes, with his dilated pupils and a look as drowsy and heavy lidded as her own must be.

“Do you have condoms?” she asked.

“Fuck, no…”

“Doesn’t matter, I have.” In her purse. On the counter. She climbed off his lap and stared down at him for a moment, at his half undressed state, and his erection so clearly tenting his pants. She bit her lips. “You, undress. I get the condoms.” She almost ran to the counter, shaking off her shoes in the process, and rummaged through the contents of her purse.

“Belle…do you…is this really what you want?”

She found the condoms and turned around. Rhett was still dressed, just as she had left him.

“It is. Isn’t it what you want, too?”

He looked down at his lap. “Well, it isn’t as if I could hide it, is it?”

He was so insecure. So vulnerable. Belle stepped back to the couch, slowly, and afraid to scare him with hasty movements.

“How long since your last time?” she asked, and he snorted.

“Long enough that I stopped counting years.”

Belle went down to her knees in front of him, between his legs, and placed her hands on his thighs. He tensed.

“It’s ok. I’m not very skilled either. It doesn’t matter when it’s awkward, ok? We just…find a way.” She started to pull open the closure of his belt, and he lifted his hips from the couch so she could pull down his pants.

“You, too.” He pointed to her dress, and Belle turned around so he could open the zipper for her. He pulled it down slowly, bending forward and kissing her shoulders and her spine. It send sparks of fire right between her legs. She straddled him again in her underwear, kissed him, and his fingertips whispered over her skin like butterflies. He stroked her arms, her thighs and hips, but he didn’t touch her where she wanted it most, between her legs. Neither did he touch her breasts, until Belle grabbed his hands and placed them above her bra. He made a choking sound into her mouth, and Belle drew back and licked his taste from her lips. This was the moment when he finally believed. Locking his eyes with hers, he grasped her hips, and pushed her down onto the couch, placing himself with a swift movement between her legs. Suddenly they went fast, and without finesse, tearing off their remaining clothes. He took the condom from her and put it on, and Belle threw her head back when he entered her with a deep thrust. He pressed his lips to her throat and stayed still, until Belle groaned in hunger, groaned and rolled her hips. Rhett wriggled his hand under her ass, cupped her backside, pressed her against him, and Belle held him, scratched his back, grabbed his head and pressed her throat up to his wet mouth. Her world spun faster, and his next slow thrust kindled the fire in her loins. She crossed her ankles behind his back, tried to bring him closer, closer, so close she couldn’t tell where she ended and he began. He let go of her ass, found the place where they were joined, and god, found exactly the point she needed him to find. She had no idea what it was that he did, but her orgasm hit her with a sudden force she had not expected. Belle arched her back, wrapped her arms around his shoulders, raked his hair, and when he started pumping harder and faster, she met his movements, feeling after that warmth that had flooded her, after the stars that tickled through her limbs, down to her toes and fingertips, listened to the thrumming of her heart, his heart, his breath and her breath, to his groans and her groans, and each thrust made it warmer again, brighter, until the cloud of light and sparks exploded a second time in her lower belly and he came undone, too, buried deep inside her…

Belle had no idea how long they lay there, tangled, half on his couch and half on the floor, but eventually it got cold, and they shared a shower, kissing and holding each other. It was almost seven when they finally were dressed again, and still they hadn’t eaten anything beside a few crumbs.

“I’d cook, but I think my legs are shaking too much to hold me upright…how about ordering pizza?” He smiled, lopsided, and Belle wanted to frame that smile and put it in her purse to carry it with her at all times.

“Sounds fine with me. I just have to call Dad to tell him that I need a little longer than expected. He’ll be hungry, too.”

Rhett’s face froze a little at that. “What about Greg?” he asked.

“What about him?”

“Don’t you need to tell your boyfriend that you’ll be late, too?” He watched her with narrowed eyes, and at first, Belle had difficulties to grasp the meaning of his words.

“What?”

“Is it ok with him if you stay out late?”

“Greg is not my boyfriend.” There was a new wave of heat, but this one was neither pleasant nor wanted. This one was white-hot anger. He had thought she had a boyfriend, and slept with her nonetheless? Had he thought she had a boyfriend and slept with _him_ nonetheless?

“He’s not?” He paled, and something so incredibly guilty crossed his face that it turned her stomach upside down.

“Why do you look as if you killed someone?” she asked, but before he answered, her phone rang. Belle lifted a finger to silence him, and looked down at her phone. It was her father.

“Yeah, what’s up dad? I’m still at work.”

“Right. Honey?” Her father sounded just like this morning when she had taken his remote.

“What is it?”

“Greg got evicted from his landlord, and he’s going to stay with us for a while, alright?”

Belle wasn’t able to unclench her teeth as she gnarled “alright” into the phone and hung up. When she faced Rhett again, her anger had just reached the heat of a volcano about to erupt.

“What. Did. You. Do?” she hissed, and Rhett lifted his hands as if he was afraid she’d lunge at him and kill him. Which she probably would in less than a heartbeat.  


	10. Day 9: Whisky

The way she looked at him convinced Gold that she was about to murder him. The counter between them was the only thing between him and his demise, and he was quite thankful for the sturdy construction with the marble countertop. He considered to pretend that he didn’t know what she was talking about, but that would be a lie. On the other hand, she looked pretty scary…

“Whatever do you mean?” he asked, and she tilted her chin up and set her jaw in a way that told him as clear as a road sign that he was about to drive off a cliff. Or against a concrete wall.

“Are you Greg’s landlord?” she asked, and at least this question he could safely answer with the truth.

“I am not.”

“Then how did you manage to get him evicted in such a short time? Is that even legal?” So she didn’t doubt his guilt.

“I cashed in a favor.” His teeth did barely unclench when he answered, and it amazed him, somewhere at the back of his mind, that he even admitted it. Usually, it didn’t trouble him to bend the truth to his needs. Meeting her eyes, it was a lot harder not to tell the truth. It was hard to believe that this was the same person that had kissed him only half an hour ago. The same person –the first person in years – that he shared an incredible intimate moment with. Skin on skin.

It was not so hard to believe that he had fucked it up in only one day.

“Look, Belle, I’m sorry. I acted rather stupid and based on an assumption…”

Her eyes opened wide, and for a moment he feared they would pop out of her skull. “So it would have been ok if he really was my boyfriend, is that what you’re saying?”

“I guess that means it wouldn’t.”

“Indeed, that’s what it means.” She stared at him for another moment, and he felt as if she was roasting him over a fire. Then she inhaled, closed her eyes, and she seemed to make a decision. Probably one that involved never seeing him again.

“Ok”, she said. “Grab your coat. You’re driving me home.”

“Dove is…”

“No.” She didn’t let him finish, and the tone of her voice tickled and twisted his insides. He felt nauseous. “You are going to drive me home. You will come inside with me and apologize to Greg, and fix it. He will either move back into his apartment, or you will let him stay here with you, but he is _not_ living with me and my dad.”

“I’m not letting Greg live here. You could…” Again she cut him off.

“Don’t you even think in that direction, Mister. I’m not moving in with you. What is wrong with you?”

“If I only knew…” He muttered it more to himself, but she heard him and raised her brows. She looked so damn angry. He was no stranger to anger, a lot of people started yelling at him when they found out that he really was as unrelenting as it was said about him. But it never bothered him. This time, however, it did. He could live with her – rightful – anger, if only she didn’t stop seeing him at all. He didn’t want to lose that little of a friendship that they had. His stomach heaved with the memory of her kisses, of her skin, and he knew that he didn’t want to lose that, too. But he would be content if she just gave him another chance at being her friend.

“Whatever. Grab your coat.” She turned around and stalked out of his kitchen, and he had no choice but to follow her. He was sure that this would get humiliating. Mortifying. He grabbed his car keys and his coat and went outside behind her, and he waved Dove away, who leaned at the car, waiting to take Belle home.

He never admitted to being wrong. He never _was_ wrong. And now he was about to apologize to a gorilla. He stood beside the car and watched Belle climb in, and he wondered why he even did this. There was not much that could bring him down on his knees like that.

She didn’t talk to him while he drove to her home, and when he parked the car in front of the flower shop, he was almost sure that he couldn’t go through with it. Never. This was the most ignominious thing he ever had to live through.

“Belle, please…” he started, but she opened the door and got out of the car without giving him a chance to finish. His grip on the wheel tightened, and his knuckles went white. She bent down again, and looked inside the car, at him.

“Get out of the car.”

He unbuckled his seatbelt and climbed out, but he stayed on his side of the car, one hand on the roof, one on his cane, and looked at the entrance of the building in which her father lived. It looked like the entrance to hell, disguised with pretty flowers in vases and harmless brickwork.

“Belle, I won’t do that. All I did was to suggest that it would be better if this Mr. Gaston wouldn’t live there…”

She stalked around the car and planted herself in front of him. She was so tiny, but her anger made her twice as big as usual. Apparently, some people didn’t need physical strength to be intimidating as hell. “Better for whom? And why? Did you want him to leave Storybrooke?”

“Yes.” His guilt made his voice hoarse and croaking.

“But why?”

“Because I wanted him as far away from you as possible.” He wasn’t able to look at her. Instead, he stared down at his cane. His fingers wiggled out of their own will, and he tried to keep them still. Tried to keep his nervousness from showing.

“Good Lord, Rhett. What were you thinking?” Belle stepped closer, and if he inhaled deeply enough, he could smell her, sweet, and a little spicy from his shower gel. They had shared a shower. They had lathered each other. When they both had been naked. It felt like it had been a lifetime ago.

“I thought that you couldn’t possibly want me when you can have him. I’m no match for a man like him.” Saying it out loud was even more painful than just thinking it. It burned on his tongue and in his throat, and he wished she wouldn’t look at him. It was easier when he pretended she wasn’t there. But she was too close to pretend that, too close, and yet not touching him.

“And you thought I had a boyfriend and still slept with you? Do you think so low of me?”

This was the most painful question of all, and it etched his skin and pierced his bones to imagine how she felt. How she thought him to see her. “I didn’t think at all. I hoped…but I didn’t think. Couldn’t, with you in my arms.”

“And that is supposed to compliment me? Or is it supposed to be an excuse?”

Gold flinched when she cupped his chin and made him look at her. Her tone had not been angry, or accusing, though her questions were. She locked eyes with him, looked right into his soul, and he swallowed.

“I just want to understand.” Her hand on his chin, on his jaw, seemed to burn right through him. His skin tingled, trembled, and he wished he could just pull her closer and wrap his arms around her, and bury his face in the crook of her neck. Breathe her in. He didn’t move.

“There was chocolate on your skin…”

She let her hand sink down, broke skin contact, and he could see her disappointment in the way her brows were drawn together and she pressed her lips together.

“Let’s go inside then.”

“You really want me to go through with this? He doesn’t even know that I’m involved.”

“No, but _I_ know. And don’t you think it’s one of the most basic concepts of civility to make up for it when you’ve done harm to someone?”

She was so terrifyingly naïve. “No, dearie. I make half of my money by taking advantage of others.”

It was the wrong thing to say, and she looked as if he’d slapped her. Shaking her head, she turned around and stalked away, and when he started to follow, she lifted her hand and gestured for him to stay where he was.

“Don’t bother. I wouldn’t want for you to lose your face.” She didn’t look at him anymore, and he realized that he had just lost every chance of forgiveness. In his attempt to get rid of her gorilla, he’d managed to chase her away. If he believed in anything, he’d say that this was Karma in its purest form. But he didn’t believe in Karma.

“Belle”, he called after her when she reached the door. She looked back over her shoulder at him, and he hoped that her tear stained face wouldn’t be the last thing he saw of her. “Will I see you tomorrow?”

“Well, Mr. Gold, I’d say you know perfectly well that no one breaks a deal with you. I made a deal, and I’m not going to back out. But don’t bother with setting the table for two.”

She left him standing there, and he felt as if she had punched him right on the solar plexus and knocked the air out of his lungs. He was so stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

In the end, there was no pain that a good whisky couldn’t cure. And even the sharp pain of knowing that she shared her flat with that gorilla dulled after a while, as well as the anguish over his own brainless actions. He had been alone for long enough to know that he would survive another twenty years of loneliness. Just the same, at some point (probably that one last whisky had been one too many), he realized that he didn’t _want_ to be alone for the rest of his life. This afternoon, he had had a taste of life, a taste of a life he had long since forgotten, a live that revolved not only around himself, but involved another person, another human being, in the most basic sense. He had had no idea how much he missed warmth, how much he missed being touched, being kissed, being held. And not so long after that realization came the decision that he was now drunk enough to call the only other person that was in any way obligated to talk to him.

When Neal answered the phone, after it rang for at least a minute, Gold was too shocked to hear his voice to react at once, and his son almost hung up on him.

“Neal. It’s me. It’s me.” He could hear the panic in his own voice, and he tried to breathe it away. It didn’t work. He had no idea what to say. How to start.

“Dad. What do you want?”

Neal didn’t sound as if he had forgiven him. Let alone forgotten.

“Let’s…let’s talk. I just want to talk…”

There was a long silence at the other end of the line, and Gold began to fear that Neal hung up on him. They hadn’t talked in years. Almost ten, by now. He still knew Neal’s number by heart. Though he supposed he was lucky his son never changed his number.

“Are you drunk?”

Of course Neal wouldn’t believe that he called him sober. They both knew that his shadow was too big for that. They both knew that he was too much of a coward for that.

“Yes. I am quite drunk.” No use denying the obvious.

“So. What do you wanna talk about?”

“I wanted to say I’m sorry.” His speech was slurred, and he stumbled over the s-es. Neal kept silent again, and Gold held his breath.

“I’m not the one you should apologize to”, he said at last, and Gold closed his eyes and inhaled, quivering.

“But you’re the one I want to apologize to.”

“Yes, now that you’re drunk. What happened? Actually, you know what, I don’t wanna know. It’s late and I’m perfectly fine without you. I’m done talking to you.” There was a crackle in the line.

“Neal…” He didn’t get an answer. Neal had hung up on him. Gold let his head fall back and pressed the phone to his chest. It was too late for him. When not even his son was able to forgive him for something he did years ago, how would Belle ever be able to forgive him…when he was not even able to do the one thing she wanted him to do.

The idea of sitting through almost three months of stilted meals, of awkward silence, killed him. There was no way he could go through with it. He dragged himself to bed, but he was too drunk to fall asleep, so he just lay there, waiting for the room to stop spinning.

When Sunday morning came, he had come to a decision. He didn’t want to force her to sit through the deal, no more than he wanted to sit through it.

This time, he didn’t let the feeling of impending doom keep him from entering the building where her father lived above the flower shop. But each step of the narrow stairs seemed to be higher than the one before, and he was already considering to turn around and leave without so much as knocking at the door, when he heard it: A muffled scream.

“Greg, stop it, that hurts…” It was Belle’s voice.

Gold sprinted up the rest of the stairs, taking two steps at a time, ignoring the pain pulsing through his leg, and kicked open the door to the apartment where the scream had come from. The door banged to the wall, opening into some kind of tatty living room. On a rug in front of an old green couch wrestled two people…Belle, on all fours, sweating and panting, with naked legs, and the gorilla behind her, holding her leg up as if he wanted to rip it from her body. And both stared at _him_ as if he had lost his mind. Gold noticed a third person on the couch. Moe French. Then he realized that he held his cane raised up high, ready to beat it over the head of anyone hurting Belle.

“Mr. Gold? What are you doing here?” Moe asked. Gold had not yet decided whom to beat down first, and all three stared at him as if he was the fucking Terminator.

“I think you can let go of me now”, Belle muttered, and Greg let go of her leg as if he just had remembered that he was still holding it up. Belle scrambled to her feet and came towards him, slowly and with her hand extended. As if she was afraid he’d snap. He noticed that her legs were not really naked. She was wearing shorts. Really short shorts, that ended only an inch or two below her ass.

“It’s ok, Rhett. You can take that down. We were just doing gymnastics.” She reached him, and placed her hand on his arm holding the cane, gently pulling it down.

“You screamed”, he stammered, realizing that he just made himself into a gigantic fool. Belle bit her lip, as if she was about to laugh at him.

“Who the fuck is Rhett?” Moe asked, and Greg answered him. “I think it’s Mr. Gold.”

“We exercised”, Belle explained.

“It didn’t look like exercise. More like attempted murder…”

“Yeah, no, it’s yoga, actually.” She sounded breathless, and her chest was still heaving. She was covered in sweat, just like yesterday when they had...

“What are you doing here, Gold?” Moe asked again, and Belle rolled her eyes. Gold didn’t pay attention to Moe, now that he was sure Belle wasn’t in any danger.

“I came here to talk to you”, he said, looking at her, and her only.

“Oh. Let’s go into the kitchen then.” She went ahead, and Gold followed, careful not to look at anyone. He was only too aware of the eyes of her father and Greg following him. Out of the corner of his eyes, he noticed that Greg was wearing leggings. And he noticed that he was quite well endowed. Disgustingly well. He looked quickly away.

The kitchen was even shabbier than the living room, with a footworn linoleum covered floor – which once upon a time must have been of the same pea-soup-green as the rest of the apartment – and half curtains that were yellow of age. Everything was a little filthy, a little greasy, and from the lamp above the kitchen table hung a fly strip covered with so many dead flies that Gold was quite sure it hung there for at least a decade. There weren’t that many flies in Storybrooke.

“Sit”, Belle said, and he wiped clean the seat of an old plastic chair with his sleeve before sitting down. Belle didn’t sit down. “Talk”, she said, grasping the back of another chair. He fetched the envelope out of the inside pocket of his coat and placed it on the table, careful not to touch the rubbed down surface.

“What’s that?”

“It’s the rest of the money I owe you for three months. I release you from our deal.” He placed the fingertip of his index finger on the snow white envelope and pushed it towards her. It glowed in its whiteness, in stark contrast to the greasy grey surfaces of the kitchen. After what seemed to last an eternity, Belle pulled out the chair and slumped down on it.

“Why?” she asked.

“Because I couldn’t bear to look at you for three more months, knowing that you secretly despise me.”

“But I don’t. This is silly.”

“It’s not. I know perfectly well that I’m difficult to like, and only too easy to hate.” It was safe to watch her while she looked down at the envelope, safe to take in her beautiful face and memorize every single line of it. When she looked up, he averted his eyes.

“Don’t make it sound as if it wasn’t your own fault. You’re the one who screwed up.”

“I’m aware of that.”

“Well, ok then. I won’t take your money. Take your envelope and go home. I’ll see you at four.” She pushed back the chair and got back to her feet, and looked at him as if she waited for him to comply and simply give in. He rose to his feet, too, and although he wasn’t much taller, he could look down at her, and she had to tilt up her face to look him square into his eyes. He liked that. It exposed her throat. He could see her pulse throb there, beneath her skin shining with sweat, and he longed to kiss her and lick the salt from her skin. He swallowed and tried to push those images back.

“You don’t understand. I don’t want that deal anymore. I’m through with it.” Nothing was farther from the truth, and yet nothing was more true. She didn’t know that, of course, and he could see that his words hurt her.

“Are you saying you’re through with _me_? You slept with me and now you don’t need me anymore?” Her voice got shriller with each word, and her father shouted out of the living room “Belle, are you alright?”

Gold clenched his jaw in a grimace, and his face hurt as if it was pricked by countless needles. “I’m saying nothing of the sort.”

“Then what are you saying, Rhett?”

His tongue was a heavy stone in his mouth, and not a word wanted to come to him. So, instead of answering, he walked around the table and stepped to her, as close as he dared to. Without wanting to, he lifted his hand, stopping only short of her collarbone. There were sweat stains on her shirt, and strands of her hair had freed themselves out of her ponytail and stood out from her head like feathers. She looked at him, silent, waiting for him to explain what he couldn’t explain. He caught one of her loose curls and tucked it behind her ear. She frowned, and he pulled back his hand.

“Yesterday meant more to me than I can explain. But I can’t do what you’re asking of me. I can’t apologize, and I would do the same again, probably. It’s too deep inside me to change. I’m not a good person, and you deserve more than that.”

“Don’t you dare tell me what I deserve and what not. Did you make this deal with me to get me into your bed?” She was snarling at him, and he stepped back again.

“No. Of course not.”

“Then why can’t we just continue with it?”

“Why would you even want to, after what I did? Why can’t you just take the money and let it be?” He picked up the envelope and extended it to her. She didn’t even look at it.

“I’m not that kind of girl. See you at four.” She stepped around him and started for the kitchen door. She shrieked and jumped when she stepped through it, and at once Gold had his cane ready again.

“God, Greg, you startled me. Did you listen at the door?” Belle glared at the gorilla who filled out the doorframe.

“No…I just wanted to check if you’re ok.” Greg looked from her to Gold. Belle snorted.

“I’m fine. Just perfect.” She slipped around Greg, and only a few seconds later, Gold heard a door slam shut. The envelope was still in his hand. She had flat out refused to let him out of the deal. He was not sure if this was annoying or exhilarating.

“Be careful not to hurt her”, Greg said, ripping him out of his thoughts.

“Or what? You will come at me with a sword and play the knight in shining armor?” Gold tucked the envelope away. He couldn’t care less about Greg and his threats.

“No, of course not. She might hit me if I’d do that. I just don’t want her to get hurt.”

Now he had Gold’s attention. “Why?”

Greg wandered into the kitchen, slowly, and Gold was still not sure if he wasn’t about to get beaten up by her gorilla. Maybe she had told him about his hand in the matter of getting him evicted.

“I have never seen that glow about her. She looks like she’s fallen in love. And everyone knows you’re an ice-cold bastard who rips out hearts. So, if you hurt her, I will rip out your heart.”

“How…touching. Do you love her, too?” Only when Greg’s eyebrows shot up and he looked as if he had just seen a unicorn did he realize what he’d just had insinuated. Damn. He was decidedly not at his best right now. Since when did he carry his heart on his sleeve? He could just as well walk through town with an open chest and an arrow that pointed to his heart and said _stab me here_. “Look, I’m sure she appreciates your gallant efforts, but I fear it’s already too late for that.”

Greg snorted, pulled out a chair from the table and sat down, stretching out his legs and taking up almost all space available in the tiny room. Gold wondered why he was still here, talking to a gorilla.

“It’s too late when she says it’s too late”, Greg said, and Gold thought that the man shouldn’t sit on a chair like that, with his legs apart, especially not while wearing tights. He noticed how Greg’s fingers curled at the inside of his thighs, painting small circles, and if he didn’t know better, he would think that the other man was trying to…seduce him? He tore his gaze away from Greg’s hand, realizing that his train of thoughts had flushed his face. That couldn’t be right.

“I’m sorry I got you evicted”, he said, out of a whim, and Greg chortled. That wasn’t the reaction he had expected.

“I figured you had something to do with it. Well, as much as this is a pain in the ass, I can’t say I’m sorry for living here now.”

That was the moment Gold decided that it was better to leave, before he would forget himself. He nodded to Greg, not bothering with goodbyes. He greeted Moe with a dip of his chin, too, but French, bound to his couch, didn’t intend to make it an easy escape.

“Keep your filthy hands off my daughter, Gold”, he snarled at him, and Gold winced. How could someone like Moe French have a daughter like Belle? What did he do to deserve the devotion and love that made her even skip meals to save money and help her useless father pay back a loan that he shouldn’t have taken in the first place? If he didn’t know exactly that he lacked whatever it was Moe French possessed, the fact that she was able to love her father would give him hope. But he was not a person who inspired love. Not even his own son was able to bear him.

He left the apartment without reacting to Moe’s words. And on his way home, he couldn’t help but hope that she’d really come. Because if she did, it meant that he had another chance. Besides, he still had the salmon from the day before in the fridge, and he needed to cook that before it went bad.   


	11. Day 10: Roasted Curry Salmon with Tomatoes and Rice

It was worse than the first time she went to his house for dinner. The first time, he was just a man who had suggested a strange deal. Now he was the man who made her heart flutter in her chest, the man she had earth-shattering sex with – once – and the man who did the meanest and stupidest thing she could have imagined. And the man who was too damn afraid to face the consequences. Belle had no idea why she hadn’t taken the chance to back out of the deal. But the moment he presented her his envelope, thick with money, she knew that she rather chase him to hell and back before giving him the opportunity to get away that easily. No, he had to suffer.

Not that she was very good at making anyone suffer.

But when he opened the door and watched her stride in as if he feared she was about to blow up his house, she thought that persisting on holding up the deal was a good start. It was probably the first time he had maneuvered himself into a deal he wasn’t comfortable with. Of course, at some point she had to release him, and if only to have a chance at having some kind of healthy relationship with him. Belle tried to shake off those thoughts. She was getting ahead of herself. She had no idea how he felt about her. The only thing she knew was that their attraction was mutual. That didn’t mean that it went beyond physical for him.

“Are you really sure about this?” he asked, and Belle rolled her eyes at him.

“You can try as you might, I’m not going to let you out of this. Do you already feel that uncomfortable?”

“Yes.” He stared at the floor – or at her feet, she was not entirely sure. But out of a whim, she had decided to wear a pair of red high heels that did not only make her several inches taller, but made her legs sexy as hell. Maybe she wasn’t very good at making anyone suffer, but she could at least try.

“Good.” Belle stalked past him, dropping her coat into his arms in passing, and enjoyed his look of confusion and insecurity. She didn’t hate him, that not. But that didn’t mean that he didn’t deserve it to be punished. Her mind flinched back from that word, and she corrected herself silently. He deserved to pay a price for acting like a self-righteous bastard.

She avoided to look at the couch when she passed through the living room, as if she could see them both still naked on it when she looked at it. He followed her, slowly, and leaning heavier on his cane than usual.

“Are you alright?” she asked, suddenly afraid that their exercise had increased the pain in his bad leg. He didn’t miss the worry with which she looked at his leg.

 “I’m not that old”, he said, and Belle blushed.

“No, of course not. What happened to your leg?”

At once his face became impassive, withdrawn, and Belle felt like a nosy kid. But they had had sex, so she didn’t think it beyond their boundaries to talk about things like that.

“I’m making the curry salmon today.” Rhett turned away and limped behind the kitchen counter, and Belle remained on her side of it. Apparently he wasn’t willing to share his tale, and she decided to give him a pass. This time.

“Greg told me that you apologized to him.” She rested her elbows on the marble countertop, leaning forwards, and she registered how his eyes flitted over her and rested for the briefest of moments on her cleavage. She could even see him swallow, and she smiled as innocent as freshly fallen snow. _Look, and think about what to make of me_ , she thought. _Think about making out with me_.

“Did he?” His eyes found her face.

“Did you?”

“If he says so, I guess it’s true.”

“I’m impressed. I didn’t expect that.” It seemed always like a good idea to reward someone with positive affirmation when he did the right thing. And Rhett surely needed a lot of positive encouragement. So she smiled her best positive affirmation smile (and she had had a lot of time to practice with her dad; every time he decided not to wash out her mouth with soap, she smiled at him to reward him), and Rhett cocked his head and wrinkled his nose.

“You look at me as if I were a dog.”

That wiped the smile from her face. “I just thought I show you how proud I am that you did the right thing…”

“And now you talk to me as if I were a dog.”

Belle straightened and had to keep herself from stomping her foot to the floor. “I am not”, she said, but when he chuckled and turned away, she did stomp her foot.

“It worked with my dad when I was a kid.”

“What? Treating him like a dog? No wonder he’s so grumpy.” He bent down to fetch a pan out of a drawer, and Belle forgot for a short moment what she wanted to say, distracted by the view. He really had an attractive backside, and that was something she rarely thought about a man. She could understand why men were attracted to women, because women were beautiful, but men…well, she rarely met one whose behind caused her stomach to tickle from inside. When he came back up and turned around again, she had to shake the spider webs out of her mind. She had planned on tormenting _him_ , not letting herself being teased by…his arse, for heaven’s sake.

“No”, she said, after remembering what they were talking about. She ignored the smirk lingering around the corner of his mouth and chose to believe that her state of mind wasn’t obvious at all. “Smiling at him. He used to discipline me by washing out my mouth with soap when I was audacious. Every time he didn’t do it, I rewarded him with a smile.”

The smile had slipped from his face, and he set the pan with a clatter on the stove. “He did what?” he asked, and the hoarseness in his voice shocked Belle.

“Oh…he didn’t know how to handle me. You know, he was a single parent, and I was a strange kid, always reading and such…I guess he was just scared when I started to think, you know…” It sounded lame. She remembered that it had been terrible whenever her father resolved to such measures. But she had forgiven him long ago. At least she thought she had. And it wasn’t as if her dad had beaten her or anything. Now, when she looked at it, she only felt sorry for him. She had not been an easy kid, and her father had been overtaxed with her. She was too intelligent, too clever, and too dismissive with things and people she regarded as stupid. And her dad, sad as it was, was not any sharper than Greg.

Rhett didn’t take it as lightly as she did, and he came around the counter again, and before she knew what was happening, he wrapped his arms around her and squeezed her tightly. This came so surprising that she had no idea how to react, or where to put her arms. She had never thought of him as the hugging type.

“I’m so sorry”, he whispered into her hair, and Belle began to suspect that she somehow had passed an invisible barrier and landed herself in a parallel universe.

“Um…it’s ok, really…It didn’t do any lasting damage…” Belatedly she realized that it maybe wasn’t the best of ideas to share something like that with a man who got someone evicted because he thought him to be her boyfriend. She pushed Rhett away, gently, but determined. “You’re not going to do anything irrational or stupid, understood? This is none of your business. It’s between me and my dad.”

“Of course. I was just commiserating. Isn’t that a good thing?”

“So you want to make me believe you’re human after all.”

He snickered and stepped a little farther back. Belle already missed the warmth of his arms around her. “I wouldn’t go that far”, he said, and Belle was glad he turned his back to her, because she was sure she made a really ungainly face in her attempt to swallow her own giggle.

He resumed his preparations, and Belle watched him in silence, but somehow it wasn’t awkward or stilted. In fact, it wasn’t at all like she had expected it to be. This morning, in her dad’s kitchen, she had been sure that holding on to the deal would result in three months of tense conversations, taut meals and a suffocating atmosphere, but now she found herself in his kitchen as relaxed as if nothing had ever happened. She even had forgiven his insolence. And she had to admit, when he put on his kitchen apron (who would have known that a man in an apron could be that sexy), she didn’t think about cooking, or food…well, only in the broadest sense, because when he took the grape tomatoes out of the pantry and started washing them, she imagined him popping them into her mouth and licking their juice from her lips. After that, she had to look away, because her cheeks felt like burning, and she was certain that she was almost as red as those tomatoes. She could only hope that he was immersed in his preparations and didn’t notice the way she had to bite her lips to keep the sigh that prickled on her tongue from escaping her.

Perhaps she wasn’t as successful as she thought, because he had looked up and found her staring at his hands, and the tomatoes, and she didn’t realize it until he cleared his throat.

“Everything alright? You look a little…heated”, he said, and the tone of his voice didn’t betray if he knew what was going on in her head…or elsewhere. She shifted a little on her feet and was glad that the counter was between them and blocked his view on her. Kept him from noticing the way she pressed her thighs together. Not only her face was warm.

“I’m fine. It’s pretty warm here, don’t you think?” She plucked at the neckline of her dress to get a little air circulating over her skin.

“Not really, no.”

He _knew_. His eyes on her were unwavering, and she felt almost as if he was undressing her, although he looked into her eyes, and her eyes only.

“We’ll never have another meal together if you keep looking at me like this, darling. I will either cut off my fingers or stop cooking altogether and ravish you right here in the kitchen.”

Belle couldn’t hold back the sound that his words elicited at the back of her throat, and she had to lick her paper-dry lips. “I think…I guess I will leave you to your preparations, then. May I take a look at your music collection?” She pointed to the rack in his living room that held innumerous vinyl records, and he nodded. Better bring a safe distance between the two of them, because although she had forgiven him, she was not at all willing to fall into his bed again. Or onto his couch. Or his kitchen floor. She peeked over the first record she pulled out of its shelf and watched him. No, she wouldn’t give in to this idiocy and let him love her on the kitchen counter. Or the dining room table. Damn, there were a lot of places in his house where she wouldn’t let him love her. Today. Not even tomorrow. After a while, she managed to stop thinking about him and sex with him and actually concentrated on the music he had collected. There was a lot of Jazz, and a lot of opera.

“Huh. You really like Puccini”, she said after a while.

“I do.”

Belle jumped, not having noticed that he was right behind her, and she almost let go of his record in her hands.

“You startled me!”

“I noticed.” Rhett took the record from her and slipped the vinyl out of its sleeve. When he placed it on a record player and set the needle gently down, a crackle sounded through the room before the first notes of La Bohéme filled it, and he smiled at her, so warm and gentle that Belle felt it right beneath her breastbone.

“ _Questo Mar Rosso_ ”, he said. “And dinner’s ready.”

“Oh. So soon?” She followed him into the dining room and was surprised to find the table already set. For one person. Just as she had requested the night before. There was a twinge in her sides, and her breathing became shallow. She had forgotten about that. She stopped abruptly, and Rhett, walking behind her, almost collided with her back. She felt his breath ghost over the nape of her neck.

“Is something wrong?” he asked, and she turned around, just as the music gained a moment of drama with a drumbeat that sounded like thunder through the room.

“Damn right there is. I know I said I wanted you to set the table just for one person, but I didn’t mean that.”

He raised a single brow, and Belle was not sure if his expression was really wondering, or smug. “And I should have known that…how?”  

“I don’t know. I tell you now. I don’t want to eat alone.”

“Well, it’s too late for that, my dear. I cooked only for you.” He gestured for her to go to the table, and now she could see that he enjoyed this. This was _his_ way of getting back at her. Smug bastard.

“And what are you going to eat?”

“Oh, don’t worry about me, dear. Sit, please.”

Belle sat down, but she was no longer relaxed. How could he be so…caring and gentle in one moment, and so beastly the next? When he placed the plate with the roasted salmon fillet, basmati rice and grape tomatoes in front of her, she contemplated to flat out refuse to eat without him. But she remembered the first night, and remembered his threat then: “Don’t make me feed you.”

Earlier, the image of him feeding her had been incredibly arousing. But in her imagination, it had been an act of seduction. Now the idea was frightening, because it wasn’t seduction anymore. It was power play. He sat down opposite her, and she started to eat without looking at him. And the meal, which should have been delicious with the fillet melting on her tongue and the tomatoes popping open in her mouth and flooding her with their sour-sweet taste of summer and heat, backed by the distinctive taste of basmati rice, just tasted stale. Belle avoided his gaze while she fought with every bite, choking it down as if it was made of paperclay. After finishing, she placed her cutlery carefully on the plate and drew a deep breath before meeting his eyes again.

“Point taken”, she said.

“Whatever do you mean?”

“You may set the table for two tomorrow. I like it better to eat in company.”

His eyebrows – those damned wriggly things – shot upwards. “That is nice of you, but I won’t do that. You wanted to hold up the deal, so we’re going to follow it to the letter.”

She pushed back her chair and got to her feet, circling the table with long strides. Her mood had changed from forgiving to aroused to irritated. Now, she was fucking furious. Before he could get up to his feet, she was at his side, raking her fingers through his hair and, grabbing a fistful of it, pulling back his head. He stared at her wide-eyed and open-mouthed, and so confused. She grasped his jaw, and her fingertips dug into his cheek when she bent over him.

“I know you’re doing this to bring me to back down”, she hissed, “because you think you’re so easy to hate, and you don’t want to sit through this. Well, let me tell you something: I don’t hate you. Not in the least.” And with that, she pressed her lips onto his, in a kiss that was as claiming as a branding. She didn’t close her eyes, and she noticed his hands clawing the edge of the table, his eyes widening, and then, when she pushed her tongue into his mouth, his pupils dilating. He made no move to push her away or fight her off, though she wasn’t very gentle. She loosened her grip on his jaw and let her fingertips ghost down from his cheek over his jaw and his throat, feeling the scratch of his stubble there, down to the knot of his tie, pulling him closer. His eyelids fluttered shut, and Belle inhaled him, basked in his beautiful surrender, sucked in his lip, and moaned when he answered her tongue with timid strokes of his own. Her hand in his hair loosened itself, changed from a fierce grip into a gentle caress, and he made a sound into her mouth that sent her reeling. What started almost brutal grew soft, tentative, and Belle felt her anger slip away, leave her like silk fluttering in a whisper to the ground. He tasted like basmati rice and spices, like tea, and her knees went weak. She didn’t want to close her eyes, didn’t want to miss a single flicker on his face, but when he moaned again, and his hands moved from the table to her waist, she squeezed her eyes shut and kissed him deeper, claiming him for the last time before she drew away.

They stared at each other, panting, and he had a look of utmost wonder in his eyes, as if he just awoke out of a vivid dream and couldn’t quite grasp the reality of his surroundings.

“I don’t hate you”, Belle said, hoarse and almost croaking, before she stepped back. His hands fell from her waist down into his lap, and he looked too weak to get up, too shaken.

“See you tomorrow. Set the table for two.” And with that, she turned and stalked out of his house, accompanied by the sounds of _Donde lieta uscí_ , before he could get up and hold her back, and before her resolution to go dissolved into thin air. Because, if she didn’t go now, she wouldn’t go at all.        


	12. Day 11 & 12: Cupcakes

He wanted to end the deal, desperately. Wanted to end it, get it over with, never ever have heard about it. He wanted the deal to end so they had no dependency that could taint their interaction.

He wanted her. Desperately. He wanted her to kiss him again, like she had done it the previous evening, wanted to feel her nails scratch over his throat, and his scalp, wanted to bask in the helpless shivers she elicited and wanted to let her have him in every possible way. He wanted her to kiss him and never stop.

But as long as they were both pressed into that tight corset of this deal he had so artfully laced, he was not sure if a relationship was even possible. What had he to give, apart from his money, that she could possibly want? On the other hand…she needed the money. Dearly. But as long as the deal existed, there was always this uncomfortable disparity between them, the knowledge of him paying her. It felt…dirty. And not in a good way. Besides, he didn’t know if that kiss was not just her way of getting back at him. Her way to retaliate. Punish him for meddling with her life and then backing away and follow their deal up to the letter. If it was, then he could live with that. He would gladly grant her revenge in every way she desired. If it involved her lips on his body, then he would accept that. If not…well, he would accept that, too, but he’d prefer it the other way.

But on Sunday, when she came for dinner, she didn’t kiss him, and she didn’t touch him, and God knew that he gave her plenty of opportunity. She seemed a little miffed, and she didn’t watch him with her eyes as clear and curious as usual when he prepared her meal. Neither did she look at him as if she contemplated to eat him, like the day before, when he had been sure he would cut off his fingers if she didn’t look away. She was brooding, and maybe it was his fault. Maybe she had realized, with some delay, that he really wasn’t a good man, and that his apology to Greg had been an accident. Maybe she had realized that she didn’t like it to kiss him. After all, he was old. A creep, and not even his own flesh and blood loved him.

He didn’t dare to ask her. And despite her... _order_ from the day before, he didn’t set the table for two. It was a clumsy attempt at making her angry, snapping her out of the gloomy mood she was in, and for a moment, he thought it worked.

“You stubborn beast”, she said, and the heat of anger just beneath the surface made her voice raw, and made him hard. But she sat down, and she ate. Slow, savoring each bite, and it was not until she was halfway through her meal that he realized that with each bite she took, she looked at him, right into his eyes, and showed him the pleasure his meal gave her. Showed him the pleasure _he_ gave her. She was torturing him. She made him watch, made him tremble, when he thought to be the one in control.

“Are you feeling better now?” he asked, when she was finished, and she narrowed her eyes at him.

“I would be better if I didn’t have to go back home, where my father and Greg are discussing soap operas while resting their stinking socks on the table and eating cereal.”

“You could stay here.” It was out before he could think about it, and when she looked at him, with her nostrils flared and her lips pinched, he wished he could take it back. She pushed back her chair and got to her feet, and this time she didn’t come around the table.

“Thank you, but no. As long as you don’t know what it really is that you want from me and engage in petty power play over the wording of a ridiculous deal, I’m not going to spend the night with you.”

“I don’t engage in petty power play…” He realized how ludicrous his statement was. Of course he was playing his power play with her. He did with everyone, and it was this that drove people away from him. He stared down at the tabletop and painted small circles on the shiny surface with his fingertips.

“That’s what I thought”, she said, and she sounded so disappointed that it twisted his insides into a tight knot. “But if it’s power play you want, then it is what you shall get. I'll see you tomorrow.”

She left without a kiss, and Gold wondered if he was even capable of doing what she wanted him to do…whatever it was.    

The next morning, when her gorilla entered his pawnshop with a bouquet in one hand and a cardboard box in the other, he realized that he perhaps underestimated her creative potential in playing his game. It would be really mean to send her gorilla after him and force him to face the man day in, day out. Especially since he had revealed to Greg how much Belle really meant to him.

“Hi, Mr. Gold”, Greg said.

“Look what the cat dragged in. How can I help you?”

Greg chuckled and placed his flowers – a bouquet of terribly tacky roses of deep red – on the counter beside the register. Gold tried to convey his opinion about the flowers by wrinkling his nose, but Greg didn’t get the hint. Of course, gorillas were not very skilled when it came to reading human gestures and expressions.

“There’s no need to be nasty, Gold, I’m not here for payback.”

“Wouldn’t have crossed my mind.”

“Really? Then you should work on your social skills, because getting someone evicted is not a nice way.” He leant forward and planted his elbows on the counter, and Gold contemplated if private tutoring in behavior had any worth if his tutor was a gorilla. He’d prefer a small brunette with blue eyes and a beautiful smile.

“So, if you’re not here for payback, how can I help you?” Gold tried very hard to sound polite, at least. Greg leaned a little closer.

“I have flowers for you. And cupcakes.” He placed the cardboard box on the counter between them and nudged it a little closer. Gold stared down at the box.

“Um, that is very nice of you, and I’m flattered, but I didn’t order flowers. Nor cupcakes.”

“Oh, I know.” Greg grinned and leaned even closer. He had freckles around his eyes, Gold noticed, small dots, like a celestial map.

“Well, then…thank you, but I have no need for cupcakes.”

Greg chuckled again, and Gold felt his breath on his face, minty, thank God. He hated it when people breathed into his face. Well, there was one exception, of course. He could drink in Belle’s breath, preferably with a kiss…He blinked and concentrated on the gorilla in front of him.

“They’re not from me”, Greg said, with a wide grin, and Gold felt the tension leave him. He had not even realized that he had held his breath. The gorilla tilted his head, and Gold sensed that there was something coming. “The flowers are, though.”

“Oh.”

Greg still smiled, and his tongue peeked out between his teeth and licked over his lip. Gold could not look away, and without being aware of it, he grasped the box with the cupcakes and pulled it closer, planted it almost like a shield in front of him.

“Why, thank you.” He was not entirely sure how to handle the situation (or what was going on, really), and he was glad when Greg straightened, patting the countertop with his huge paws.

“No hard feelings”, Greg said, winking, before he left the shop, whistling something that sounded almost like _Mr. Sandman._ A little out of tune, though.

Gold found a card tucked to the box, and he opened it with trembling fingers. He knew no one who would send him cupcakes. Except Belle, but that was only hope, an idea he didn’t dare to think and expected to be shattered the next moment.

 

_I didn’t get dessert yesterday, and neither did you. I want you to eat one cupcake and leave the other one for me._

 

There was no signature, but he didn’t need one. He read the card over and over again, and each time her words felt like her nails scratching down his spine, leaving him shivering and breathless and, oh goodness, almost painfully hard. Too bad he hated cupcakes. And the thought of finding out what she would do if he didn’t eat that cupcake…well, he was keen so see how far she would take the game.

He only had to wait till noon for her to enter his shop, on killer heels and in a blue dress of lace so short it hardly deserved to be called clothing. He had to swallow down the saliva flooding his mouth before he choked out a weak “Hey”. Apparently she made no compromises when she was set on winning.

“Show me the box, Rhett.” She didn’t even say _Hi_ , and the tone of her voice had him hard again in an instant. He would lose this battle epically.

Belle frowned when he fetched the box and showed her its content – two cupcakes with rose colored frosting.

“I don’t like cupcakes, dear. They’re too cute for my taste.”

“Cute is not a taste.”

“No, it’s a distaste.”

She looked as if she was about to stomp her foot and growl in frustration. Maybe his chances weren’t that bad. Though he had to revise that thought when she came around the counter and hopped onto it, with a grace he wouldn’t have expected from her, wearing three-inch-heels.

“What are you doing?” he rasped, and her smile left him breathless and ready to surrender.

“Show you how to eat a cupcake.” She took one of the cupcakes and dipped her finger into the creamy topping. And then the little minx spread a portion of cream over her knee and her inner thigh, right up to the hem of her dress, with a grin so naughty that he had to grab the counter for support, or else his knees would have buckled. She drove him right into the ground, without mercy.

“Now lick it off”, she purred, licking the rest of cream from her fingertip.

He had to clear his throat, but he was still much to hoarse. “What about the door…Someone could come in…”

“I won’t ask again.”

That tipped the scale, and he bent down and started kissing her knee, kissing and licking and sucking his way upwards, following the trail of cream she had left for him. Her knees fell apart, and she moaned a little when he reached the end of her trail and bit gently in that tender flesh on the inside of her thigh. She tasted like heaven, salty and sugary and he groaned and pressed his face to her thigh in his attempt to have as much of her as he could get. She raked through his hair, scraping his scalp with her nails, and he grasped her waist, painting circles over her pelvic bones with his thumb, and he didn’t stop kissing her, making his way further up her thigh.

When the bell over the entrance door ringed, she squeaked, and Gold shot up, without letting go of her, ready to chase to hell whoever had chosen this moment to waste his time, but every word he was about to snarl at the intruder got stuck in his throat.

“Neal…”

His son stared at him with a mix of horror and embarrassment on his face, and Gold didn’t even notice when Belle pulled down the hem of her dress and hopped from the counter. Only when she tugged at his sleeve to get his attention, he remembered her.

“You..um…there’s a little cream…” She wiped over the corner of his mouth and his cheek, and he squeezed his eyes shut and wished this moment wasn’t real, was just a dream and he would wake up. But when he opened his eyes again, Neal still stood in the door, staring at Belle, who gathered the box with cupcakes, her face crimson, and looking to the floor when she slipped around the counter and started for the door. She halted and turned back when Neal failed to step aside and let her out at once.

“I…um…I see you later?”

He could only nod. She looked at Neal, raising one of her perfect eyebrows, and his son stepped aside. Only when she was gone, Neal faced him again.

“I see that you haven’t changed one bit. Still going after girls half your age.”

“Neal…”

“Yeah, stuff it. You wanted to talk, so here I am. Talk.”

Gold swallowed, finding his mind completely blank and unable to speak. He only hoped that Neal would not decide that he didn’t need to know more than what he’d just seen, and turn around to leave him again. Because more than anything else, he wanted to find his way back to his son.

  


	13. Day 12: Roasted Chicken Legs and Tabbouleh

Gold was not prepared for a situation like this, and he had no idea what he was supposed to say. It was the first time in years that he saw his son, and every single time he imagined their reunion, there had been tear-soaked hugs and words of forgiveness. Not in a single one of his imagined reunions, his son had been walking in on him while he licked cream off a girl. Off her legs, to be precise. He couldn’t imagine anything more mortifying.

“Neal…I have changed.” At least he hoped so.

“Doesn’t look like it.” His son didn’t come any closer, stayed just inside the door and shifted from one foot to the other.

“It’s not how it looks like. I’m not running around seducing schoolgirls.” Saying it out loud made it sound even more ridiculous. It was not a habit of his to go after women half his age. He didn’t go after women at all. In fact, he avoided them like the plague. Well, except for Belle. He couldn’t stay away from her if he wanted to.

“You know what, this was a mistake. When you called, I really thought that maybe, we had a chance. That I was maybe important enough for you to jump over your own fucking shadow. But then I walk in here, and you’re still the same old bastard that you always were.” Neal turned, ready to leave, and Gold had no idea how to make him stay.

“Neal! Please…let’s talk about it over dinner. I’ll cook.”

Neal paused, his hand already on the door handle, and Gold hoped against all odds that his son would agree. And he almost fainted when Neal turned back and nodded.

“Alright. But make enough for four. I’ll bring Emma and Henry along.”

“Who’s Henry?”

“Your grandson, dad. My son. Emma’s son.”

Gold was speechless for a moment. He had a grandson, and his son hadn’t even told him. His voice was only a scratch in his throat when he asked: “How old is he?”

“Are you worried that he couldn’t be mine? He’s nine, dad. And he’s my son.”

“And Emma is ok with it? With coming to dinner, I mean.” His mind was blank and he had to latch onto profanities to keep his son within his reach. To hold him close.

“I think it’s safe to say that you should be afraid. But as long as you don’t attempt to lick the dessert off of _her_ , you should come out of it alive.”

“Belle will be there, too”, Gold hurried to say, before Neal was out the door. His son frowned.

“Why? This has nothing to do with her, and I don’t see why one of your little toys should witness our happy family reunion.”

“She’s not a toy.” The assumption set him aflame with rage, and he straightened behind the counter. Neal’s eyes grew dark with his sharp tone, but for once, he didn’t care. He had made one mistake. A big one, yes, but still, it didn’t give his son the right to take it out on Belle. This was between the two of them. “And contrary to what you may think, I don’t have a harem.”

“At least it will be an interesting dinner.” Neal stormed out and shut the door with a definite bang. But he was right. This would probably be Gold’s last meal, so he’d better enjoy it.

When Belle came at four, she was stunned for a moment by the sheer amount of food in his kitchen, and his conscience gave him a pang of guilt for not warning her. She had no idea that she was about to have dinner with his family.

“My son and his family will eat with us today”, he told her, and Belle seemed to think that this was a good thing. He didn’t have the guts to tell her the truth, not even when she announced that she would help him prepare his dinner, and not just watch him.

“I think this is a good day for a truce, don’t you think?” she said, and Gold almost groaned then. She had no idea what she was getting into.

“It is. Why don’t you prepare the apples for the dessert? Just peel and core them…” She smiled and got to work, and while Gold started chopping tomatoes and cucumber for the tabbouleh, he watched her peel apples and, from time to time, nibble on the skin she peeled off them. If he was to kiss her now, she would taste of apples, sweet and juicy and sour. He tried to come up with a reason to kiss her while he hashed mint and the kitchen filled with its sharp scent, but not a single reasonable excuse to kiss her came to his mind. Maybe _Sorry dear, but there is a little apple juice on the corner of your mouth, let me kiss it away_? _I need to test if your lips taste as red as they look_? _I want to mix the taste of apples and mint with a kiss_? He still had no idea how to get her to kiss him when he poured boiling hot water over the bulgur and she scraped zests off lemons and oranges over the apple wedges. By now, his kitchen was filled with so many delicious scents that he had difficulties not to drool all over the butter he was melting to prepare the marinade for the chicken legs. And amidst all those mouthwatering smells was she, squeezing lemons and oranges and licking the juice from her fingers. She wrinkled her nose and closed her eyes, and god, she even let out a soft moan in doing so, one that had him hard and trembling and almost burning the spiced butter in his saucepan. His voice scratched hoarsely in his throat when he instructed her on how to prepare the crisp for the apples, and she bit her bottom lip and glued her eyes to his lips as if she, too, was contemplating over an excuse to kiss him, just as he did.

“So…the man who came into the shop today…that was your son?”

He had to shake off the overwhelming want to kiss her, so he would be able to concentrate on actual conversation, but that was easier said than done. “Yes. Neal. We have a…complicated relationship.”

“No kidding, huh? What did you do?”

It stung a little – a lot, actually – that she automatically assumed that it must have been him to be at fault, and he turned away from her and her delicious lips to dip the chicken legs into the marinade and place them on baking sheets. But more than her assumption stung the knowledge that she was actually right. He was to blame.

“I made a mistake”, he said, and she didn’t ask further and instead concentrated on preparing the crisp. And he resolved to stop thinking about kissing her and started thinking about ways to convince his son that he really had changed and wanted him back in his life, wanted to go back to actually having a relationship with him.

When both, chicken legs and apple crisp, were in the oven, they had time to drink a coffee before setting the table, and he wondered if now was a good time to give her a warning. But then he found himself basking in her smile, and the knowledge that it was perhaps the last time she would smile at him like that kept him from saying anything. She would realize soon enough what kind of person he was. For now, he just wanted to sit opposite her, have her smile at him and drown in those blue eyes of hers. When the doorbell rang, it was still too soon. He was not ready, and his skin grew cold and clammy with the panic rushing through him. Belle seemed to sense his fear, because she took his hand and squeezed it gently, before she got up and opened the door. As if it was the most natural thing in the world to do so. It had never been so hard to get up and walk to the door, and he leaned heavily on his cane when he entered the hallway to greet his son, and his grandson. And Emma. Emma, who looked at him as if she was ready to gut him and roast him over a fire. Not that he could blame her.

It was Belle who broke the awkward silence hanging over them. She extended a hand towards Neal and smiled her most blinding smile, the one that always had him weak-kneed and dizzy, and he registered with relief that his son wasn’t immune to it either.

“Hi, we haven’t been properly introduced. I’m Belle.”

“Neal”, his son said, taking her hand a little hesitantly, as if he expected her to burst and reveal a stuffing of gummy bears and cotton candy. Emma was just as reserved, but when she turned towards him, Gold found that, compared to the way she greeted him, Belle’s reception had been as warm as a volcano.

“Rhett”, Emma growled, and he felt a shiver running down his spine and prick him with ice cold needles. She still hated him. Not that it came as a surprise. The air in the hallway seemed too thick to cut, and Gold was sure he would suffocate within the next five beats of his heart, when Belle crouched down to greet the last one of his guests. His grandson.

“And you are?” she asked, and the boy smiled the sweetest smile, one that transformed him into a younger version of his father and wrapped itself like a vice around Gold’s heart.

“I’m Henry.”

“Hi, Henry”, Gold rasped out, and the boy smiled at him.

Belle helped him to serve dinner, once they were all seated around the dining room table, and Gold couldn’t remember a meal in his life that had been more mortifying, more stilted and excruciatingly tense than this one. They didn’t even manage proper small talk, and most of the talking was toggled between Henry and Belle, while Neal and Emma stared at him as if they contemplated over the best way to kill and cook him, each one out of their own personal reasons. He could hardly eat, and every bite he took of the chicken felt like he was chewing on a stringy root instead of a perfectly cooked dish that melted on the tongue. When Belle brought the apple crisp, Gold was ready to jump in front of the next truck just to end this farce of a family dinner.

“So, Belle…how do you know Rhett?” Emma asked, and Gold knew that the slaughter was about to begin.

“Oh, we have a deal.” Belle smiled, and Gold had to swallow down the groan that formed in his throat. Way to convince them he wasn’t a creep. He felt the desire to pull her over his lap and spank her for her candor, because she seemed to have forgotten that his son had seen him lick the frosting of a fucking cupcake off her thigh only a few hours before. What kind of deal could that be?

“Does he pay you to keep him company?” Neal asked, and Belle paled. _Too fucking late to realize what you’ve done, dearie_ , he thought, but he clamped his mouth shut.

“Oh, no. God, why do you think that? No, he’s helping me.”

They talked as if he didn’t sit with them at the same table.

“My father isn’t one to offer his help without getting the better end out of a deal. So what is it he gets from you?”

“I’d say that’s none of your business.” Now Belle was wary, and offended, judging by the heat rising to her cheeks, but the damage was done.

“Dear, why don’t you take Henry and find a book for you two to read?” He wasn’t able to look at her and meet her gaze, and he thought that it would be much fairer to send her home and spare her the humiliation that was about to come, but he couldn’t help it – he needed her. He wanted her at his side, close enough to draw strength from her smile and the steel she was hiding right beneath her skin.

“A deal, huh? Was no one there to warn the poor girl and tell her to never, ever make a deal with you?” Neal didn’t go through any trouble to hide his disgust.

“Neal…please, I just want to make it up to you.”

“I said it before, dad. It’s too late, and too little. I’m not the one you need to apologize to.”

Emma sat between them, looking from one to the other, and Gold knew exactly what Neal wanted him to do. Why he brought her along.

“Neal, that was ten years ago. It was a mistake, but I was not alone in this. I don’t think that Emma needs an apology from me.”

“I know. Doesn’t change the fact that I want you to suffer just as much as I suffered. What about her?” Neal pointed his chin to the living room, where Belle was reading to the boy. Henry. “Does she know that she has to be careful around you?”

“Neal…”

“No. I thought I could give you a second chance, believe you that you really regret what you did, but instead of regret, you parade your new trophy in front of me…”

“Neal!” It was Emma’s sharp tone that cut him off. “I don’t need an apology. He’s right, he was not alone in this. And we’ve been there. You wanted to see if you could tolerate him again. Do you know that now?” She grabbed Neal’s hand, and Gold wondered for a moment how they had managed to overcome that rift he had ripped into their trust in each other. It was a miracle that they were still together. Neal pushed back his chair. When Gold wanted to rise, too, he lifted a hand to keep him from doing so.

“Please, don’t bother. We’re leaving. Henry!”

Gold was still staring numbly down at his empty plate when Belle came back from walking Neal and his family to the door, and he didn’t look up when she stepped behind his chair and started to massage his neck and shoulders. Her tenderness made his eyes sting, and he drew a shuddering breath.

“Wanna tell me what this was about?” she asked, scraping her nails over his scalp, and he swallowed. His throat was too tight to speak, but he tried it nevertheless, knowing that she would probably never come back when she knew what he had done to his son. Should he tell her the truth…Or tell her what everyone believed to be the truth? He sighed.

“Ten years ago, I had a short affair with my son’s girlfriend.” Her hands on his scalp stilled, and he lifted his shoulders, awaiting the pain he was sure to come when she would dig her nails deep into his skin and rip out his hair.

“Emma?” she asked, and he nodded. He tensed when she resumed raking through his hair and scratching his scalp, and gulped a little air when she let her hand glide under his jaw to bend up his head, so he could see her face. He clawed his fingers into the table cloth, forced his body to stay still, to let her have her way.

“Why would you do something like that? That doesn’t sound like you. At all.”

“It’s been ten years. I’ve changed.” He wanted her to believe him. Desperately.

“Huh.” Her fingertips trailed down his throat, and she pulled at the knot of his tie, so she could wriggle her hand inside his shirt and stroke over his chest. He didn’t dare to breathe, afraid she might stop then and go away.

“But why would Emma do something like this? She loves Neal, and she can barely tolerate you…I wonder what really happened.”

Belle was way too clever. He grasped her wrists to keep her hands still and pulled her around to his side, pushing back his chair so he could pull her down onto his lap. Once he had her there, he wrapped his arms around her and pressed his face to her chest, inhaling her scent of apples and oranges and mint. She was so warm, so perfectly molded to fit to his body, and he just wanted to hold her for a while. He had no idea what they were doing, no idea what exactly it was that was between them, but right now, he didn’t care. He just wanted to hold her a little longer.

“Belle…stay with me tonight?”

She sighed, and he pressed his lips to her throat, to that spot where her pulse throbbed, where her skin was so soft and smooth. He felt her shiver in his arms, and he dared to open his mouth a bit and suck at that spot, and lick over her salty skin. She ran her fingers through his hair again, and then gently pulled his head back.

“I don’t think that we’re ready for that, Rhett.” She slid down from his lap, and he felt terribly empty and alone then. And the feeling only intensified when she left, while he was still sitting at the same spot, staring at the empty plates and the empty chairs around his dinner table.

She left without another kiss, and he wondered if he had made the wrong choice.


	14. Day 13: Tea and Cookies

Belle was not sure how she should feel. Technically, it was neither her business nor her concern what Rhett had done with whom ten years ago, but still, the idea that he had done something like this to his son bothered her. And no matter how hard she tried, she just didn’t believe it. He was not the nicest person, true, and somewhere at the back of her mind, she was still angry for what he had done to Greg (and she would stay that way as long as Greg lived with her and her father), even when she forgot her anger when she was near him. But seducing his son’s girlfriend seemed too vile, even for him. Maybe, if she hadn’t met Emma, she would have believed that it had been her to seduce him, but after meeting the blonde, Belle thought that to be even more unlikely than the other way around. Although, something was there, and maybe that was the reason it bothered Belle so much: There was a tension between Rhett and Emma, sparks flying between them, and Belle could totally see a man fall for the fierce blonde. Any man.

Alas, it was not her place to be jealous. True, their relationship still moved in that undefined space somewhere between mutual attraction and occasional touch and a ravenous hunger for each other. Something between tenderness and companionship and bristling anger that surfaced at the slightest provocation. Each time Belle became aware of her irritation, she thought it would be best to keep their interaction impersonal, professional. And the next moment she found herself staring at his lips and wishing to rub her face all over him.

She was glad that the bell over the door of the flower shop rang in this moment and kept her from pursuing that particular thought, but when she recognized her customers, her relief was washed away and she became wary.

“Hi Emma. Neal.” They looked at her as if they were just as surprised to see her as she was to see them, and that made her believe that they really came for the flowers, and not for her. “How can I help you?”

“This is a flower shop, right?” Neal looked around, and Belle rolled her eyes. Maybe he didn’t get along with his father, but she had certainly done nothing to deserve his scorn. He might be hurt and raw, but _she_ had nothing to do with it.

“Indeed it is. Glad you were able to read the sign, half of our customers come in here thinking this is a coffee shop.”

Emma snickered, and all of a sudden, Belle liked her a lot more. And Neal had the decency to look ashamed, which soothed part of Belle’s anger away.

“We’d like to buy some flowers for Neal’s mom”, Emma said, and for a moment Belle lost her ability to breathe.

“She’s still living here?” she asked, and blushed when she realized how needy and idiotic she sounded. Neal rolled his eyes and turned away, leaving it to Emma to answer Belle’s question.

“The flowers are for her grave. She died fifteen years ago.”

“Oh.” Belle gave up conversation after that, making a small bouquet of white roses under their silent scrutiny, and although she’d liked to ask Emma about what really happened ten years ago, she didn’t dare to ask. This was too personal, and they barely knew each other. And Neal seemed to detest her simply for the fact that she liked his father.

And his father…Well, when she arrived at his house at four, he still wasn’t quite himself. He seemed to have resorted to coldness again, and Belle wondered if it really had been the right thing to leave him in his state of vulnerability the day before. Maybe he thought she rejected him and now tried to protect himself by rejecting her. She sighed when she followed him into the kitchen, where he started his dinner preparations. He had to learn that it didn’t mean rejection when she needed some time for herself to think.

“How are you today?” she asked, and he answered without looking at her.

“Why do you even want to know?”

“Because I care.”

He let out a hollow laugh, and Belle felt frustration gnaw at her insides.

“Rhett, would you please look at me?”

He continued to stare into the fridge, as if he was more likely to receive warmth and affection from its contents than from Belle, or any other human being. Of course he assumed she was rejecting him, just as his son rejected him. She walked around the counter and gently placed her hand on his arm to make him look at her. He flinched, and turned his face away.

“Rhett, you’re behaving irrational. What’s wrong?”

“What is it you want from me, Belle? This is just a deal. You don’t need to pretend that it’s anything else.”

He sounded raw and hurt, but Belle couldn’t help but feel hurt, too. This was already so much more than a simple deal, but he refused to acknowledge it, refused to see that they had left that deal already too far behind them to ever go back. It was as if he refused to see how close they already were, and refused to understand that Belle needed to go slower to get a grip on that whole thing. Maybe it was her fault. She had teased him, in the shop, and maybe that had not been the smartest thing to do. And she even could understand that he assumed she would now reject him, after he admitted something as hideous as having an affair with his son’s girlfriend.

“How old was Emma when it happened?” she asked, and he ripped his arm out of her grip and turned away, banging the fridge shut with his cane.

“Are we really going there? Are you really asking me if I’m a pedophile?”

“Gods, no. I was just…curious.” He was slipping away, drawing up his walls, and Belle feared that once they were in place, it would be impossible for her to get through to him again.

“She was nineteen.” He set up pots and pans, producing a lot of clatter with his sharp movements, and the noise gnawed at Belle’s nerves and made her clench her jaws. When he started to put half of his cooking equipment back into the cupboard, she realized that he had no idea what he was doing.

“Rhett”, she said, and repeated it when he didn’t react at once. Only when she stepped at his side and touched his arm again did he stop shoving pots around and stared down at his hands for a moment. “I didn’t leave you because I was shocked or anything. I just think we need to do this slow.”

He plucked her hand from his arm and took a few steps back. “We’re not doing this at all. Neal’s right. I’m not the right company for you.”

“Have you completely lost your mind now?” Heat crept up her neck, and Belle was sure that her face had to be as red as a hydrant by now.

“Quite the opposite. I’m crystal clear right now. This isn’t going to work. The deal is off. For real, this time.”

Belle inhaled deeply and tried to stay calm. “Rhett, we’ve been there only a few days before. I’m not going to let you out of that deal.”

“Yes you are, dearie. Please, leave. I’m through with that deal.”

Belle felt as if she had been running, and she was panting. There was a humming sound drowning out everything else, and she knew without a doubt that she had not even been this angry at him when he had evicted Greg. How could a grown up man be so irrational…so irritating…so stubborn?

“Fine”, she bit out, taking her purse from the counter and starting for the door. “I’ll wait at home until you’re back to normal. Obviously you’ve lost your mind. I can only hope that it’s temporarily.”

He didn’t follow her, and he didn’t hold her back. For a split second, while she slipped into her coat, she hoped he would come after her, apologize, and hold her back. But he didn’t, and Belle ignored Dove, who had not even parked Rhett’s car yet, and started walking. She needed to get the anger out of her system, needed to exercise and get rid of the boiling rage that made her shake, made her throat tight and her vision swimming. But when she reached home, half an hour later, she was still furious, and she ignored Greg and her father, who sat on the couch and discussed at the top of their lungs if Maria should marry Rodrigo or Diego or not. Belle was not even sure if they noticed her at all when she slipped inside and hurried into her room. She threw herself onto her bed, and she didn’t hold back her tears any longer. She had tried to reach out to him, and he was too stubborn to let her close. No, he had to shove her away. Belle started to cry in earnest now, drowning in self-pity and rage, dry sobs at first, but soon she was sobbing uncontrollably. She didn’t even realize when the door to her room opened and Greg peeked inside, but when he came in, sank on the bed beside her and pulled her into his arms, she didn’t object. He just held her, patted her back and stroked over her hair and let her cry.

“Hush, it will be alright again. Let it all out, sweetie.”

Belle half laughed, half sobbed against his shoulder, and she noticed that her tears left a huge wet stain on his shirt.

“I’m sorry”, she sniveled, picking at the stain.

“Oh, that’s ok. It’s only tears, I let you launder that out.”

“You’re doing your own laundry, Mister.” Belle punched him gently, and he chuckled.

“So, wanna tell me what happened?”

“No.” She wiped her nose with the back of her hand, and Greg extended a tissue that he fumbled out of the pocket of his jeans. It was a used one, but she took it nevertheless, with picky fingers. It was the gesture that counted.

“Shall I make you some tea? You look as if you could need it.”

Belle nodded, snorting into his tissue, and Greg got up and left for the kitchen. He came back much faster than she expected, and without tea.

“Um, Belle, there is…a visitor for you. Shall I send him away?”

“Is it Gold?” When he nodded, Belle wondered why she even asked. Of course he came back to apologize. But unless he came crawling, Belle was not in the mood to face him.

“You can tell him that I don’t want to see him. Not unless he comes on all fours and begs for forgiveness.” She folded her arms and turned away from her door, but she saw the grimace flitting over Greg’s face nevertheless.

“Uh, Belle, please tell him yourself. He looks scary.”

“You’re twice as big, Greg.” She still sounded as if she had a severe cold, her nose clogged from the tears, but she tried her best to sound firm.

“Belle, let me talk to you.”

Of course he was already standing outside her door.

“Go away”, she yelled, and Greg ducked out of the way when she tossed one of her pillows at the door.

“Belle, please talk to the man. He threatened to evict us!” Greg sounded positively terrified. Or turned on, Belle was not entirely sure about the scratch in his voice.

“He can try. I’m going to rip him to shreds if he does that!”

“This is ridiculous.” Rhett entered the room and closed the door into Greg’s face, and grunted when his face was hit by another pillow. “Belle, please let me talk to you.”

“You had your chance. I was at your house, remember, an hour ago? When you threw me out?”

“I didn’t throw you out.” He squared his shoulders, and Belle grimaced and tossed Greg’s used tissue at him.

“ _Belle, leave, I’m through with you_ ”, she quoted.

“I didn’t say that.” He came around the bed and sat down at her side. Belle scooted away and looked at her headboard. “I said I’m through with the deal. But as soon as you were gone, I realized that I behaved really …bad.”

“Like an ass, you mean.” Still she didn’t look at him, but she saw a sigh lift his chest out of the corner of her eyes.

“Yes, like an ass.” He placed his hand on her shoulder, carefully, as if he was afraid she would hit him. Well, she very well might do that. “I’m sorry. I didn’t expect you to really leave.”

“What?” Belle whirled around to face him. “You said I had to go, so I did.”

“Did you cry?” He touched his fingertips to her chin, and Belle turned her face away again.

“Of course I cried. What do you think why I'm sounding like a dying elephant?”

“I’m sorry, dear.” He pulled his pocket square out and started to dab at her face.

“Don’t. You’ll ruin it.” Belle reached for his hand, but he clucked his tongue and just continued, and Belle saw how the silken fabric of his pocket square became stained with her runny makeup. Her face had to look terrible, blotchy and tear stained.

“That doesn’t change anything”, she said, when he folded the kerchief and put it away again.

“I know. I’m an idiot, and in my fear that you would reject me, I rejected myself for you. But to be honest, I hate that deal. I hate this constant struggling for power.”

“You only hate it because you’re losing.”

He snorted. “I’m not losing.”

“Well, doesn’t change the fact that I don’t let you out of the deal. And to be perfectly clear, I wasn’t rejecting you.”

Belle rubbed her fingers in her lap, and Rhett took one of her hands and pulled it into his own lap. He started to rub tiny circles into her palm. “Please, I didn’t mean to upset you.”

Belle pulled her hand back. “That was exactly what you meant to do. And guess what, you succeeded. I’m upset, and I’m mad, because you don’t trust me enough to tell me when or why you are upset. You don’t…Oh, I don’t know.” She thrust her hands up and frowned, lost for words. For a moment, they just stared at each other. And the next moment, as if someone snapped their leash off, they leapt for each other’s face, out of some secret synchrony, and bumped their foreheads together in their search for each other’s lips. Belle groaned in pain, but she ignored it when their lips met and he captured her in a kiss hungrier and more savage than any kiss they had shared before. His nose bored into her cheek, and he even bit into her bottom lip, making Belle almost squeak, before she remembered Greg and her dad only a few feet away in the living room. Even when they watched TV, they would still hear her if she was too noisy. Rhett left her lips and started to kiss her face, her eyelids and temples and her cheeks, started to nibble along her jaw, and Belle buried her hands in his hair and pulled him closer.

“We have to be quiet”, she whispered, and Rhett left her skin only for a moment to agree, before he returned his lips to her throat and kissed and sucked his way down to the crook of her neck. Belle tried to change her moan into a silent sigh, but she had to bite her lips to keep silent when he placed his hand on her breasts and started to tug at her nipples through the fabric of her blouse and her bra. She dug her nails into his shoulders and started to shove his jacket off him, and he helped her, shrugging it off in a hurry.

“What exactly are we doing here?” he asked between kisses, while he started to unbutton her blouse, and Belle tugged at his tie and started to peel him out of his clothes. So many clothes.

“If I have to explain that to you, there is even less hope than I thought”, she growled. Rhett fisted the fabric of her blouse to yank her closer, and Belle tumbled against his chest. Her leg jerked in an unfortunate angle and knocked over the lamp on her nightstand, sending it rattling to the floor. They both stilled, holding their breath, and Belle squeezed her eyes shut in a grimace when there was a hesitating knock at her door.

“Belle, everything alright?” Greg asked.

“Yeah, I got this.” Her answer came a little high pitched, because Rhett used her distraction to rub over her breasts in her bra and paint little circles with his thumb around her nipples, sending streams of heat right between her legs.

“Hm…You call if you need help, ok?” Greg sounded as if he didn’t want to leave his post at her door, and Belle rolled her eyes while she found the fly of Rhett’s pants and fumbled it open.

“It’s ok, Greg, really. I’ll call if I need you!” She gasped when Rhett pressed her down onto the mattress and started kissing and licking her collarbones and her chest, down to the edge of her bra. Belle tugged at his shirt, and he sat up and started to unbutton it in a hurry, while Belle wriggled out of her tights.

“Don’t forget, ok? I’m right down the hall!” Greg was still not gone, and Rhett stared at the door as if he was contemplating murder, while he shrugged out of his shirt.

“I know, Greg. I’m kind of busy here, talking, so I’d appreciate it if I could have a little privacy!”

Rhett hooked his fingers into the waistband of her skirt and panties and yanked them down, leaving her completely bare to his eyes. She tried to shoot him an angry stare, but he just smirked, grasping her hips and bent down to whisper into her ear.

“Spread your legs for me, darling.”

Belle had to choke down a groan when his words created a pool of heat in her lower belly, and her knees fell apart without her doing. Rhett shoved down his pants and boxers before he grabbed her thighs and wrapped her legs around him when he eased himself between her knees. Belle had to clap her hand to her mouth to prevent herself from making any sound when he found her entrance with his deft fingers and tickled her there, when he spread her folds and drew out the wetness there until she was ready to take him in.

“Oh God, Belle…” He thrust his head back when he entered her, resting on his forearms over her and grasping her wrist to pull her hand from her lips. “I want to hear you sigh and moan, darling”, he whispered, and Belle punched his shoulder.

“Have you forgotten where we are? What do you think we’re doing here?” A gasp somewhere between a hiccup and a groan escaped her when he thrust into her, deep and hard, and he chuckled.

“I believe I’m doing you.”

Belle lifted her head from the mattress and buried her teeth in his shoulder, making him groan and move again inside her.

“Beast.” He let go of her hand and grabbed a fistful of her hair to pull back her head, and he started to lick and suck on her exposed throat, until she arched against him, using her hands and heels to get him deeper inside her. She felt his teeth at the side of her neck, felt him bite and suck in her skin, and she knew he would leave a bruise where everyone could see it. The idea alone made her tremble and almost come undone, and she bit her lips to keep quiet. Rhett lifted his head, locked eyes with her, and each of his thrusts provoked a groan deep in her throat.

“Don’t hurt yourself, sweetheart”, he whispered, freeing her bottom lip out of the grip of her teeth with his thumb, and Belle licked over his rough skin there. His eyes didn’t leave her face, making sure she was right there with him when he covered her mouth with his palm to muffle the sounds she gave off when he moved inside her. Belle licked the salt from his skin, and met each of his thrusts with a roll of her hips. He started to move faster, and harder, and Belle was glad for his hand swallowing her moans. Then he tensed over her, and buried his face in her hair, pressing his cheek to hers and whispering nonsense into her ear when he came undone and spilled himself inside her. Belle groaned frustrated when he left her hanging on the edge, not quite there yet, and Rhett rolled to her side and covered her sex with his palm, massaging her gently before he found her clit and pinched it tenderly.

“Come for me, sweetheart”, he whispered, and found exactly the right spot with his fingertips to drive her over the edge. Belle shattered in light and color, and her toes and fingers curled into her sheets, leaving her twitching as Rhett drew out her pleasure. “Just like that, darling. There it is.” His hand slipped from her face, and Belle panted and gasped for air. She needed quite some time to recover, but then she punched him to the chest and frowned at him.

“I’m still mad at you”, she growled.

“Really? Didn’t feel like it.”

“Don’t be smug. I’m ill-humored because I didn’t get anything to eat today. You can’t back out of our deal, or I might starve.”

“That’s blackmailing.”

“Yeah, guess what, you’re not the only one to find weaknesses and exploit them. You wanted to watch me eat, and pervert or not, you’re going to do exactly that.”

“Belle…”  

“I’m not letting you out of this, like it or not.”

“But why?” He sounded almost desperate now.

“Because I’m afraid that we don’t have a reason to see each other without that deal.” She said it louder than she had intended, and he looked at her as if she just said the stupidest thing ever.

“Are you saying we wouldn’t have sex if we didn’t have that deal?”

“This is not just about sex, Rhett!” Belle felt the frustration rise again, and she sat up and covered herself with her blouse. He got to his feet and yanked his pants back up.

“Of course it isn’t just about sex, but if you’re only sleeping with me because we have a deal, then it is very much about that. I don’t want you to feel obligated to do this. I didn’t have something like this in mind when I suggested that deal.”

“I don’t sleep with you because I feel obligated!” Belle reached for her lace panties at the foot-end of her bed, but he was faster and snatched them away, holding them just out of reach.

“Why then, Belle? I want to hear it.”

Belle darted for her underwear, but he didn’t let go when she got a hold of it. In that moment, she hated him.

“You’re an ass”, she hissed, and he narrowed his eyes to slits.

“I know. Which makes me wonder all the more.” He pried her panties out of her grip, stuffed them into his pocket and started to dress again, moving erratically and watching her as if he suspected her of lunging at him.

“Are you taking trophies now? Do you have some of Emma’s, too?” She crossed her arms and tried to look unfazed by the fact that she was naked and he was almost fully dressed again. But her comment made his hands on the knot of his tie still, sent coldness over him, and Belle shivered, feeling as if she faced an iceberg, not a man at all.

“And if I do?”

Belle got to her feet and stepped close enough that he had to look down his nose at her, and although he was fully dressed and she was naked, _he_ was the one to look ashamed and uncomfortable.

“Keep my panties, then. And congratulations. The deal is off. I hope you’re happy now.” She stepped around him to her wardrobe and yanked out a pair of sweatpants and a shirt, not bothering with underwear. He stood there, frozen in place, and watched her dress, but Belle turned her back to him. She didn’t want to look at him. “I think you can go now.”

She heard him take in a deep breath, and almost expected him to say something, but he kept silent. Belle didn’t turn around when she heard the tapping of his cane as he retreated, and she didn’t turn around when he opened and closed the door of her room. She stared into her wardrobe and wondered how this had gone so wrong. She heard his voice, muffled through the door, and the words indistinguishable, and heard Greg’s voice answer something. She sank back onto her bed, staring blindly to the floor, and she didn’t react when Greg came back into her room, with tea and cookies on a tray.

“Gold left this for you”, he said, extending the same white envelope thick with money towards her that Rhett had wanted to give her the first time he wanted out of the deal.

This time, Belle took it.


	15. Risotto and Cake

She didn’t come to dinner the following day, nor the day after that, and neither did she come back the day after that. When it was time to make his rounds to collect the rent, Gold was too much of a coward to do it himself. He sent Dove.

Neal left without visiting him again.

“I’m sorry for that”, Emma said when she visited him in the shop to tell him about their departure. All Gold could manage was a thin smile.

“I’m sure you are. We both know that it won’t change a thing.”

Emma shook her head and sighed. “Probably not.” She looked at him, silent for a long minute, and each of them contemplated the fact that some things just couldn’t be changed. “So, Belle”, she said after a while, unaware that she hit on an even sorer subject. “She’s nice. And she’s tough. She needs to be, with you.”

“Thank you very much, dearie, but I don’t think that that’s of any importance. Not anymore.” It was all he wanted to say to that, but Emma was not the kind of person to let anything go. She was like a dog, if she smelled something rotten, she had to dig it out.

“What did you do?”

“Why does everyone automatically assume that I did something wrong?”

“Because that’s usually the case. If anything stinks, it’s more likely than not that you have your hands in it.” She didn’t say it in a reproaching way, but that was his only comfort.

“Charming”, he said, and Emma shrugged. “All I did was to tell her that I wanted to end our deal. And end it did.”

“Ouch. Did you break her heart, too?”

Gold raised his eyebrows. “What do you mean, hers too?”

“Well, you broke Neal’s.”

“We both know that’s not true. We did that together, dearie.”

“Yeah, but we both know I didn’t have a choice.” Her voice had gone dark, nothing more than an angry hiss now, and Gold felt anger rise, like simmering blood, slowly boiling up.

“And I had? Need I remind you what happened that night?”

Emma was short of lunging at him, he saw it in the way she clenched her jaws and her fists, saw it in her flared nostrils and her narrowed eyes. And he decided to add to her wrath, hoping that a fight with Emma would somehow relieve the tightness in his chest, the black mood that clawed at him and made him miserable. “You could have trusted Neal. But as you still didn’t tell him the truth, I suppose you still don’t trust him enough. Isn’t that sad?”

“Maybe it is. But maybe you shouldn’t worry so much about me and worry more about your own happiness. Because it looks as if you’re letting it slip away. And this could very well be your last chance.”

She left him with that, but the sharp pain of his rage stayed with him for days. And he wondered if she was right. If a happy ending with his son was out of question. And happiness with Belle…He had no idea where it had all gone wrong. One moment, they slept together, and the next…He had no idea what made him dive for her knickers. In that moment, he just wanted to have some leverage, something that would make her tell him what he wanted to know. Of course, her underwear wasn’t the best choice. Later he wondered how he could have been so stupid. But in that moment, he just wanted to know why she was so intent on holding on to the deal. If it was because she was afraid they wouldn’t see each other without it, then it meant that their crazy attraction, their inability to keep their hands off each other meant… nothing. It was nothing more than casual sex for her. And it was the world to him.

He tried to shove that thought back into the corner of his mind he never looked at, the tin he shoved his loneliness and his longings into and closed it off with a tight fitting lid, but lately he wasn’t as good at doing this as he had been. His tin had gotten cracks and tears, and his yearnings for something more started to seep through. He couldn’t even name what it was he craved, but he supposed it had to do with Belle. She had found his tin of closed-off needs and wants and had started to tear off the lid. Had started to pry it open with her nails scratching over his skin, with her lips pressed to his, with her smiles and her stubbornness. Her maddening defiance. She turned him into a wreck, and it meant absolutely nothing to her.

After Emma left and the realization hit him that he had hopelessly fallen in love with Belle – why couldn’t he realize that before he ruined it all? – he took his cane down on the glass cases in his shop, on the worthless junk littering his shelves, he beat it all to bits and pieces, and still, when he stood there panting amidst the shards of his wrath, he was just as empty and lost as before. He might love her, God knew why, but it didn’t change the fact that he still meant nothing to her.

He couldn’t hide forever, no matter how much he wanted to, so the following week, he did the rounds himself. He had to face her, eventually. They lived in a small town and were bound to bump into each other at some point. And he might know he was a coward, but there was no need to advertise that to the rest of town. But he delayed his visit to the flower shop until it was the only stop left on his list of debtors and tenants. Belle still worked at the library in the mornings and at the flower shop in the afternoons. When he entered the building, he could hear the tinny sound of her father’s TV coming from upstairs, and fragments of an argument floating up and down the stairs. Moe French shouting down the stairs, and Belle answering out of the back of the flower shop, sounding tired and frustrated and as if she was having the same argument over and over again, so often she didn’t even need to go upstairs and face her father to have it. When the bell over the door announced his entrance, her voice died away. She came to the front of the shop, and he was alarmed by how thin she looked. How haggard and worn and pale. She shouldn’t be thin. He had given her enough money to relieve her of her sorrows.

“You”, she said, and her bitter and sharp tone made his insides clench, much like the taste of limes. “Are you here for the rent?”

 _I’m here to see you and smell you and hear you and let you smash my heart into a thousand tiny pieces_ , he thought. “Yes”, he said. “Just the rent.”

She took a roll of money out of a drawer beneath the register and extended it to him, without looking at him, and when he took the money, she pulled back her hand as if she had burnt herself. Gold gritted his teeth. There he stood, staring at her for a long moment, silent, and lost for words. And she didn’t even so much as look at him.

“Anything else?” she asked after a while, when he failed to leave, and he finally managed to move again and let the money slip into his pocket.

“Have you eaten regularly? You look…starved.” His voice was raw, hoarse, almost breaking in his throat, and her eyes flew up to his face, flaring with rage.

“That isn’t any of your concerns anymore, now is it?”

“Belle…”

“Mr. Gold, if there isn’t anything else, I’d like to go back to work now, because I have an awful lot to do, and when I’m finished, I’ll have to take care of my father, who’s still sitting on the couch and holding up his broken leg, and then I have to do the chores of doing the laundry and cleaning for that other guy living with us, because you evicted him and he realized how comfortable it is to have a maid, and won’t leave, probably ever, so if you’re done wasting my time, I’d be very grateful.” She wanted to turn away and leave him standing, but he made a quick step forward and reached for her arm to hold her back. When she stared down at his hand on her arm, his world started spinning, out of breath, and his mind went blank. He didn’t know what he wanted to say, but he knew that it had felt like getting stabbed when she reverted from calling him by his given name to calling him _Mr. Gold_.

“I’m sorry”, he choked out. And then he did something completely crazy and probably suicidal, and pulled her into his arms, to his chest, to hug her. She went stiff for a moment, and he held his breath. He had never done something like this before, never tried to comfort someone just by offering his arms in an embrace, but it was the only thing he had to offer right now. He had nothing but himself, and she couldn’t possibly want that. But after a few endless seconds, she relaxed, and melted against his chest, into his arms, and he dared to breathe again, dared to bury his face in her hair and inhale her scent and feel her tiny, warm body against his. Her arms snuck around him, and for a moment, they just stood there and held each other. He didn’t want to let go of her, but when she stepped back, he let his arms fall away, feeling so much more empty than before.

“Thank you…I think I’m just stressed out. I didn’t want to snap at you.” She sniffed a little.

“Oh, it’s ok, I deserved that.”

“No, you didn’t. You were just worried. You’re right, I don’t have enough time to eat properly.”  

“You should take the time. At least an hour once a day just for yourself.”

Belle laughed, but it sounded exasperated. In the time he hadn’t seen her, her composure had been worn down to a thin, threadbare gossamer, too frail to hold her up for very much longer. He made a fist at his side, fighting down the urge to storm up those stairs and take his cane down on her useless father and that even more useless gorilla.

“Well, you know where to find me when you need help”, he said after a while, when she just remained silent. The memory of their fight the last time he wanted to press her into something as simple as admitting what she wanted prevented him from offering her anything else. Despite the desperate longing inside him, he was able to learn. It ripped him to pieces to see her like that, but he kept his worries to himself. “Have a nice day, Belle”, was all he said before he left.

But the next day, he came back, and brought a plastic container with a simple Risotto with him, and one with a piece of cake for dessert.

“I told you the deal is off”, Belle said with narrowed eyes when he placed his containers on the counter beside the register of the flower shop.

“This isn’t about the deal, dear. This is me taking care for someone I came to like.” He opened the first container and extracted some cutlery out of a zip bag, extending it towards her.

“You want me to eat this now? Here? In front of you? How is that any different from the deal we had?” She didn’t take the fork he held out for her.

“Well, now it’s still warm. Of course you could eat it later, when it’s cold, but it tastes better now.”

Belle still hesitated. “You like me?” she asked then, after a while, taking the fork from his hand as cautiously as if she expected him to stab her with it.

“I thought it was pretty obvious.” He shrugged.

“So, pushing people away and taking things away from them is a sign of sympathy? I wonder how you show love. Must be a terrible thing.”

He flinched at that, and Belle bit her lip.

“I’m sorry… I was trying to tease”, she said, sounding as if she was being choked.

“Well, you hit a little close to home. I’m not very good at showing sympathy or…other things.”

She looked down at his risotto then, and shoved a forkful of it into her mouth, although she still looked as if she would die of asphyxiation the next moment. But she chewed, and swallowed, and smiled.

“I take your sign of sympathy any day when it looks and tastes like this. It’s delicious.”

“Good. You can give me back my containers tomorrow.” He turned, ready to leave.

“Wait! You’re leaving? I thought…” She trailed off, and Gold turned back and watched her for a moment. She looked utterly helpless.

“I told you. This is not about me watching you eat. This is me taking care that you have that moment of yours when you don’t have to work yourself into the ground for the sake of others.”

“So you’re cooking for me now…because you care for me?”

“I’d say that’s exactly what I do, yes.” He had even managed to pretend it wasn’t creepy when he had been preparing her meal for her. Now, he wasn’t so sure anymore. “Unless you want me to stop, that is”, he said, uncomfortable with the idea that she might find him imposing too much on her life.

“No…it’s…very nice of you. Thank you, Rhett.”

“So, tomorrow?” he asked, trying to hide the smile that tugged at the corner of his lips. He felt ridiculously happy all of a sudden.

“It’s Sunday tomorrow…” She was turning the fork between her fingertips and biting her lips.

“And you don’t eat on Sundays?”

“Of course I do. I was just wondering if you maybe wanted to stay with me tomorrow… and eat with me.” Her voice trembled with insecurity, or maybe it was something else, but whatever it was, it kindled the hope glowing between his lungs, the hope that he perhaps meant something to her after all.

“I’d like that”, he said, with a smile, before he turned again and left. And although he tried to remember that they had not really talked, that there still was an ocean of problems and unresolved questions between them, he felt a little less empty.    


	16. Mousse au Chocolate

He hadn’t expected her gorilla to sit with them at the table, nor her father, both staring at him as if they were trying to roast him with their eyes. He had only brought enough to eat for Belle and him, but when he opened his containers in that little filthy kitchen and the smell of his stuffed chicken with roasted potatoes and broccoli filled the flat, they crept to the table like cockroaches coming out of hiding when the lights went out. And Belle, friendly soul that she was, shared her meal, of course. It was hardly a meal anymore then, more like an appetizer, with one half of a stuffed chicken cutlet and two tiny potatoes on each plate. At least the cockroaches scorned the broccoli.

“I don’t get it, why does he cook for you?” Moe asked, as if Gold didn’t sit at the table with them.

“Because Belle can’t cook”, the gorilla said, while Belle rolled her eyes and made a sound that came close to the groan of an annoyed donkey.

“Because her roommates fail to give her enough time to stay healthy”, Gold said, and hissed when Belle kicked him under the table.

“Everyone stay nice. It’s Sunday.”

“I’m pretty sure that the rate of domestic crimes escalates on Sundays”, Gold growled, rubbing his shin, while Moe looked from his daughter to his landlord and loaner, with his face creased in his struggle to figure out what exactly was going on. Gold could almost hear the ticking and screeching of the rusty gears in Moe’s head, and he waited for the moment when the florist would figure out what kind of interest his landlord had in his daughter. But apparently Belle wanted to keep the lid on that secret a little longer, because she hopped to her feet, startling her father out of his thoughts, and started to clean away the dishes. The gorilla leant back on his chair, burping, and grinned at Gold.

“So, what’s for dessert?” he asked, and Gold longed very much to beat some manners into the man, preferably with his cane. Or a jackhammer.

“I didn’t bring dessert”, he said, while Belle was already reaching for the plastic container with mousse au chocolate that she had placed in the fridge earlier. When the gorilla creased his forehead and looked from Gold to her, she hid it quickly behind her back.

“And what is that, then?” Greg asked, and Gold decided to beat those manners into the man with a battering ram.

“Let me clarify: I didn’t bring dessert for you. Just as I didn’t bring dinner for you.” He formed each word very precisely and sharp, ignoring the way Belle shifted from one foot to the other, biting her lips nervously. She had no problems standing up to him (and reducing him to dust in the process), but she let those two worthless cockroaches treat her like a doormat?

Obviously she sensed the danger her roommates were in, even when the cockroaches had not the slightest idea, and she decided to intervene.

“Mr. Gold, I could use a little after-dinner walk. Would you join me?”

He deflated a little, and ignored the way the gorilla wriggled his eyebrows. “Yes, of course, dear. I feel so full from those two potatoes that a walk is certainly a splendid idea.”

Greg snorted, and Moe, who was still trying to make sense of the riddle in his kitchen, harrumphed like a bear.

“I’ll join you”, Greg said, and Belle and Gold shouted “No!” almost at the same time. Moe squinted his eyes.

“You have to stay with Dad and help him back to the couch. And I think I hid the remote earlier, and I can’t remember where, so you have to search it…” Belle sounded almost begging, and Gold felt a new wave of rage surging through him. But he contained it, for Belle, because he suspected that she wouldn’t take it well if he added to her discomfort.

“Why don’t you move back into your own apartment, now that…Greg lives with your dad?” he asked, when they finally left the suffocating atmosphere of the flat behind, his empty containers and the one with the chocolate mousse stuffed into a bag with a white-blue pattern.

“They’re not capable of living on their own. Greg doesn’t lift a finger unless he’s paid for it, and Dad is high on his pain meds half of the time. They’re like…kids. You wouldn’t let two toddlers alone with candles and a lighter, now would you?”

“Probably not.” He looked down at her face, half hidden by her hair. Her eyes seemed stitched to the ground, and there was a faint blush on her cheeks. They walked in silence for a while, side by side.

“I’m sorry that you had to go through dinner with my Dad and Greg”, she said, when they passed Granny’s, and he snorted.

“Yeah, me too. Mainly because you didn’t get enough of that meal. What a waste.”

“Well, we still have dessert.” She halted, and grabbed his arm to stop him, too. “We could eat it at my place.”

He was not about to protest, and when she let him into her tiny flat above the library, he had to fight down the urge to grab her and press her against the wall and smother her with kisses. They were not there yet again, and it almost killed him.

“I’ll make us tea”, she said, sounding almost shy, and he only managed to nod. He waited patiently for her to place his tea in front of him, and a little china bowl with the chocolate mousse. When she sat down opposite him, she tilted her head and covered his hand on the table with hers.

“I’m sorry for what I said…about you taking trophies. That was stupid.”

He wasn’t able to meet her eyes. Instead he looked down at their joined hands, and gently squeezed her fingers. “No, it wasn’t. I shouldn’t have done that. I was the one acting stupid.”

“I guess we both got a little carried away.”

“Yes, I guess we did.”

He still didn’t look up, but he heard her take in a deep breath before she spoke again.

“Are you ever going to tell me what really happened with Emma? Because I don’t believe that you really slept with your son’s girlfriend.”

“I can’t. It’s not my place to tell.” Now he met her gaze, willing her to understand and accept.

“Alright. But you can tell me anything.” She pulled her hand away and started to stab at her chocolate mousse with her spoon.

“I know. And you’re right. I didn’t sleep with her. But it’s a very messy story, and it’s her story, not mine.”

“But why would you prefer your son to believe you did something like that to him, instead of telling him the truth?” She asked a question that he himself had asked often enough, and he didn’t have an answer now, just as he didn’t have an answer for it before.

“I gave Emma my word, and I don’t go back on that. Although there’s never a day that I don’t wake up wishing I hadn’t done that. But at the time, I didn’t know what it would cost me. Although it shouldn’t have come as the surprise it was.”

Belle was silent for a while. “Then Emma should tell Neal what really happened. It’s not fair that you have to pay the price for her secret.”

“Believe me, I won’t ever let her forget that.”

“You’re really stubborn, you know that, right? And not in a good way.”

“That’s who I am. I can’t change that.”

She furrowed her brows, before she shrugged and sighed. But she stared down into her bowl as if she had lost her appetite, and Rhett knew that she had not even tried his chocolate mousse yet. He had prepared it thinking of that first dinner they shared, and how he had wiped the smudge of chocolate from her lips. The attraction had been there from the start, and all that kept them apart were trifles. He got to his feet, bumping a little awkwardly against the chair with his cane, and rounded the table. Belle followed him with her eyes, and he noticed how her breathing became shallow when he took her bowl and leant against the table at her side.

“What are you doing?”

“Feeding you.” He held a spoonful of his mousse au chocolate to her lips, and she had no choice but to open up and let him feed her. But she was shooting arrows at him with her glare, and he chuckled.

“Resistance is futile, love. I’m stubborn, remember?”

“I can eat by myself. I’m a grown-up.”

“Yeah, but you didn’t. And I put too much effort into this dessert to let it go to waste.”

Belle shoved back her chair, got to her feet, too, and took the bowl out of his hands, with an expression that should have been a warning. Still, he was surprised when she took a spoonful of mousse and smacked it into his face. She hit his cheek, and the chocolate mousse was cold and wet on his skin. He stared at her, in shock, and he felt the blob of mousse slowly running down his cheek. But before it could drip down onto his clothes, Belle lunged at him, almost like a predator, nearly knocking him off his feet, and started to lick the chocolate from his face.

“Belle…”

“Shut up. I’m eating my dessert the way I want to eat it.” Her hot tongue left his face, and she wanted to smack him with another spoonful of chocolate mousse, but he captured her wrist and yanked her to his chest. She ended up between his legs, pressed flush against him, and much too close to the place where his skin grew tight and heavy and hot.

“I feel you Rhett. You like my way of eating dessert.” She grinded against his growing hard-on, and he had a hard time swallowing the saliva that flooded his mouth.

“I won’t lie…it’s quite enticing.” He gasped when she yanked open the knot of his tie with her free hand and started to lick and suck on his throat. “Belle, wait…Is this really a good idea?”

She groaned, and pulled away. “Are you really asking me to stop? It’s not as if you didn’t want me.” She pressed herself to his erection again, and he clenched his jaws.

“Alright. But I’m first in line to get my portion of the dessert.” And with that, he whirled her around and lifted her up, pushing her back down onto the table. Belle squeaked, breathless with surprise, but she didn’t protest when he took the bowl back, placing it at her side, and started to yank open the buttons of her blouse. She even helped him to get her out of her clothes, and god, she was breathtaking when she lay there naked, splayed out for him on the table. She watched him trembling as he slowly unbuttoned his own shirt and took off his clothes, measured and careful not to wrinkle anything, completely aware of the torture this was on her.

“Come on, Rhett, I’m starving here!”

He chuckled, and dipped his fingers into the chocolate mousse to let her lick it from his fingertips. Belle made a sound somewhere between a hiccup and the squeal of a mouse when he took the chocolate after that, and smeared it with his flat palm all over her torso. Down from her throat over her collarbones, following the path of her breastbone, along her ribcage, painting circles over her stomach and her breasts. With the warmth of her skin, the mousse melted, became more fluid, and the dark color of chocolate on her skin, the scent, it all drove him almost insane with hunger and desire. Belle watched him, rolling her eyes when he found a spot that was more ticklish than others, and panting when he slipped his sticky hands between her thighs, rubbing along her sex, out to her hips and her ass. 

“You look quite dirty, princess”, he teased, and Belle crossed her legs behind his back to pull him closer.

“Then start licking me clean again, beast.”

He was only too eager to comply, but she was still covered in chocolate, sticky and dirty when he found his way inside her, standing between her open legs and thrusting slow and deep, until she scratched her nails across his chest in her attempt to bring him closer, and he could no longer hold back. He pounded fast and hard into her, finding her clit with sticky fingertips and digging deep into the skin of her hip with the other hand to hold her close, and the tabled hopped with each of his thrusts, scratching over the wooden floorboards. He came apart when she started to spasm around him, groaning deep in her throat and arching her back off the table. He collapsed on top of her, panting, and his knees shook violently and threatened to give out under him. Belle giggled.

“I’m even hungrier now.”

“Give me a few minutes, darling. I’m an old man.”

Belle snorted and pinched his cheek. “The good thing is that you find all the right places.”

“Behave, love. I don’t like it to be mocked.”

It took him more than a few minutes to recover, but when they were in the shower together to wash off the sticky chocolate mousse, he took her again, pressing her to the tiles and himself to her back, biting and sucking along her neck and her shoulders, until they both reached the stars and came undone, with shaking limbs and out of breath, hoarse from screaming out their bliss.

“It’s time for me to get home again”, she said after a while, when they both were dressed again and had eaten once more, civil this time, and well behaved.

“I come with you”, he said, although the thought of facing her father again, after what he had just done with her, was downright frightening. And his fear was justified, he learned, when they reached Moe’s flat and the man stared at her as if he saw a ghost. Gold realized that her father was staring at the bruises his love-bites had left on her skin.

“What the hell have you done to my daughter, you pervert?”

“Dad!” Belle sounded appalled, but Gold was done with pretending. Ignoring Belle and her pleading look, he stepped in front of her, shielding her with his body, and glared at the florist, mustering his coldest stare.

“Nothing that she didn’t want me to do. She’s a grown woman, so don’t act as if I had debauched a little girl.”

“Rhett…”

He ignored her whisper and stared her father into the ground. Moe shrank under his eyes and looked as if he wanted to hide. “And just so you know, you’re daughter is going to pack a few things and moving out right now, because she is not a maid, and as long as you and that gorilla don’t learn to stand on your own two feet, she’s not coming back.”

“Rhett!” This time it was not a whisper, but he still ignored her. She had to get out of there, before she withered away, and if she wasn’t moving out on her own, he would get her to do it by any means necessary. Even if he had to evict them altogether.

“I can’t stand on my own two feet. My leg is broken”, Moe whined, and Gold snorted.

“You have a gorilla at hand to take care of you. Belle is coming with me.” He turned to her, ignoring the scalding glare she gave him. “Pack your things, darling. I’ll wait here.”

“Darling?” Moe roared, and Belle rolled her eyes.

“Terrific”, she growled, but she didn’t pick a fight. Yet. He knew that he probably would have to pay for his move as soon as they were out of that flat, but right now, he didn’t care. He wanted her to be free from those cockroaches. It took her only five minutes to have her things ready, and she didn’t argue with him, nor with her father. The gorilla was apparently out. Which was for the better, really, because Gold still wanted to beat some manners into him.

“Belle, you can’t go with him. He’s a sneaky bastard!” Her father had not yet given up, and Belle halted on her way to the door to turn back to him.

“That’s my decision, Dad. I will come back tomorrow to do my shift at the shop, but he’s right, I need to leave. It’s too crammed in here, and I’m not a maid. It’s time that you accept that. Besides, I’m not going with him. I’m going back into my own flat.” She stomped to the door, and Gold wanted to place his hand on the small of her back to guide her out, but she sent him such an icy look that he let his hand fall back to his side. “My decision, you sneaky bastard”, she hissed, and he was sure that he blushed, because his skin started to feel as if it was steaming. And the glare of her father felt like daggers in his back, trying to skin him alive.

When he left the apartment after her, he was not sure if he had not just maneuvered himself into the deadest of dead-ends. He really shouldn’t be allowed to be out in the open after having sex. Especially not after having sex with Belle. That tended to launch his brain into outer space.    


	17. Homemade Ravioli

God, she was furious. Not even when she found out that he had gotten Greg evicted had Belle been this angry. It was one thing to watch him mess with his own or other people’s life, but seeing him mess with her life was something else entirely. So she didn’t talk to him on the way back to her apartment, and he knew better than to press her any further. He said goodbye in front of the library, shifting uncomfortably on his feet and clearly insecure if he was allowed to kiss her goodbye. Well, he was not.

“Can I call you tomorrow?” he asked, and Belle just grunted.

“Would it keep you from doing whatever you want to do if I said no?”

“Of course. Belle, I’m sorry…”

“Yeah. Like hell you are.” She didn’t look at him when she opened the door to the stairs that led to her apartment, and she didn’t look at him when she shut the door into his face. When she reached her apartment, there was still some of the mess left they had created with the mousse au chocolate, and seeing it only fueled her anger. Everything had been perfect – well, almost perfect – until he decided to take control over her life. It didn’t matter that Belle was glad to use him as a pretense to move out of the flat she shared with Greg and her dad. That had been her fight, her decision, and he had taken that from her. When she had cleaned away even the last trace of him and his chocolate mousse, her anger was still as searing hot as before. He had to learn that he couldn’t just decide her life for her.

So she called Emma.

The next day, Rhett kept his word and called, instead of walking into the flower shop and carrying food to lay it out at her feet as if she was some vengeful goddess who had to be appeased by sacrificing food.

“Can I cook for you later?” he asked, and Belle was on the verge of saying no. But then she thought about the empty cabinets in her kitchen, the only food being a pack of rice and a box of cereal gathering dust, and she wasn’t angry enough to not be tempted by his skills in the kitchen.

“Alright. My place, at six.”

His relief made his voice a little breathless. “Wonderful. What do you want to eat?”

“Surprise me. But you have to cook it in front of my eyes. Naked.”

“W-what?” Now he sounded more than a little breathless. More like downright terrified. Or intrigued.

“That one was a quip.” She sighed. She should have saved that one until she saw his face crumbling in front of her.

“Oh. Of course.”

She wondered if it was disappointment she heard ringing in his voice, so after a short pause, she said: “Unless you want to, of course. It could help me to get over my anger…”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea.” He laughed, shaking and insecure, more like a chuckle that asked for approval, and Belle chortled, too. After hanging up, she imagined him in her tiny kitchen, with nothing but her ruffled pink and polka dotted apron on (lifted up by the visible sign of his pleasure), and broke out into helpless giggles.

Greg, who just then entered the flower shop to pick up the flowers he had to deliver, asked “Are you alright?”, and Belle imagined his face if he was to see Rhett in a ruffled pink apron, and laughed even more.

“I’m fine, yes”, she said, after catching her breath, and Greg grunted.

“I was surprised to hear that you moved out. You know that I’m not a nurse, right?”

“Neither am I. And I’d say, as long as you live in our apartment – for free, I might add – you could just as well do something to earn your stay.”

Greg lifted his eyebrows. “I like it when you go all dominant on me”, he said, and Belle wished to scratch her eyes out to unsee the face he made.

“Well then…Sweep the street, that’s dirty, too.”

Greg sighed, and his enormous ribcage heaved like bellows. “And now all my hopes lay shattered. Will you ever love me the way I love myself?”

“Hardly. Besides, you forget your love for me as soon as Mr. Gold walks into the room. When you see him, it is as if I never existed.”

“And can you blame me? Just look at his big brown eyes! And that hair…I want to feel it brush over my chest and tickle my skin and…”

Belle had to cut him off. “Greg. Hands off my man.”

Greg pouted, and Belle had a hard time keeping a straight face. She still fought the giggles later, when she opened the door of her apartment to Rhett and let him in, and the confused look on his face only added to her silliness, because she imagined him to make exactly that face while wearing her apron.

“Are you alright?” he asked. “I expected you to be more…angry.”

“Oh, I’m still furious.”

“Ok.” He limped into her kitchen, carrying a large basket with ingredients and, as she found out when he started to unpack, equipment, and planted it on her kitchen table.

“Should I be worried that you brought knives to a date?” She asked, and regretted it instantly when he flinched and his big kitchen knife slipped out of his grip and clattered to the table.

“What?”

“You’re not planning on killing me and making me into dinner, are you?”

“This is a date?”

“Well, what else would it be?” Belle tilted her head, and she got all warm and giddy when he blushed and moved his hands aimlessly around, as if he was searching for a clever response to pluck it out of thin air.

“I thought you were still mad at me.” He admitted, without looking at her, and somehow that made Belle sad. She stepped to him, took his hand in hers and painted little circles around his knuckles.

“I am, somehow. But I like you too much to be angry for very long. And when you’re so close, it gets even more difficult.”

“It does?” He sounded so self-conscious and doubtful that her heart ached a little for him, and she raised on tiptoes to press a kiss to his lips.

“I really wish I could stay mad for a little longer”, she said then. He cleared his throat.

“Yeah, well… Don’t expect me to cut anything with _your_ knives. They are as blunt as the back of a butter knife. I’m going to make homemade ravioli for you. Do you have an apron, so I don’t ruin my precious suit?” He took off his blazer while talking incoherently and jerky, and he wrinkled his forehead when Belle started laughing. Each time she looked at his clueless face, a new wave of laughter rolled over her, as if someone was tickling her, and when she extended her kitchen apron to him, she giggled even more, because the frown on his face deepened only more.

“I’m guessing this is part of my punishment, huh?” he asked, holding the ruffled pink apron at arm’s length and scrunching up his nose.

“Not even close, darling.” His face lit up at the pet name, and once again Belle felt saddened by his insecurity. She wondered how he managed to make the rest of town believe he was dangerous and creepy. He was about as dangerous as a unicorn baby. As soon as he had wrapped himself like a present in her apron, crossing the straps behind his back and tying them into a beautiful bow over his stomach, she wanted to unwrap him again, and tear off the rest of his clothes along with her apron. Instead, she put on some music and watched him prepare the dough for the pasta. Soon, he was covered in flour, and Belle was unable to tear her gaze off his hands kneading the dough. He seemed not even aware of how delicious he looked, and Belle decided that she wouldn’t tell him, lest he got cocky.

Of course the meal he prepared was delicious. There lay worlds between his homemade ravioli and canned ravioli, and Belle wondered how she had ever been able to eat the canned variation at all. After they ate together, he even did the dishes (a dead giveaway that he still had a guilty conscience, because Belle knew next to no man who voluntarily did the cleaning after making a mess), and by the time everything was neatly tucked away again, it was Belle who had the guilty conscience. He wanted to leave right after he placed the last plate in her cabinet, but Belle kept him from putting back on his blazer by placing a hand on his arm.

“Um…I might have done something”, she said, fixing her eyes on the – still perfectly sitting – knot of his tie. It was a dark blue one, she noticed, with little black dots. He was still covered in a thin layer of flour, from head to toe, and it made him look like a pastel painting.

“Done what, sweetheart?” He sounded only mildly interested, not alarmed yet. Well, that would change in a minute.

“I talked to Emma.”

“You did what?”

“I bribed Ruby from the Bed and Breakfast to give me her number, so I could call her.”

“But why?”

“Well, you said it wasn’t your story to tell, so I asked her.”

Rhett took a step back, and she had to let go of his arm. “Good luck with that. You could tie her up and beat her with a baseball bat, and she still wouldn’t tell you a thing.”

“Funny, that’s exactly what she suggested that I should do with you.”

“Why would you need to do something like that to me?”

When Belle just raised her eyebrows at that, he had the decency to look ashamed. It was true, she had not really extracted a lot from Emma, but she had at least gotten a promise out of her. “They will come back in two weeks. And this time, the whole family is staying at your place. Neal, Emma, Henry and me.”

She thought she had killed him with that, because he stumbled back and dropped down on a chair, pale and shaking. “They’re staying at my house? How did you…Why?”

“Well, isn’t it nice when someone messes with your life and makes decisions for you without asking? I’m sure it feels terrific.” 

He glared at her, and Belle wondered if she should have waited until Neal was back to tell Rhett about her little plot. “Point taken.” He just stared down at the table in front of him, rubbing his fingertips together, and Belle stepped closer, carefully, because she was not sure if he would welcome her if she touched him now. She knew that she had hardly been able to bear _his_ touch after he had manipulated her into moving out at her dad’s. When she took another step towards him, his head flew up, and his gaze froze her in place.

“Did you just include yourself in my family?”

His voice was barely more than a low growl, sending a shiver down her spine. “Well…yes. I guess. I had to promise Emma to tie you up and hold you back if need be…”

“What is this?”

Belle was not sure what he meant, and she didn’t dare to go closer and wrap her arms around him. “What, this?” she asked, and almost backed away when he narrowed his eyes, and pressed his lips together in an expression so tense that she feared he might snap the next moment, like an overstrained rubber band.

“You and me. This.” He pointed from her to him, a gesture that was so much like a question mark that Belle had difficulties breathing.

“Do I really need to spell it out for you?”

She flinched when he rose from the chair, in a sudden movement, and took a step that brought him so close that her skin started prickling. “Yes, please. Spell it out for me. Is this casual sex? Is this a friendship with benefits? Is it romance? Is it anything at all? Tell me.”

Belle swallowed. This brought her dangerously close to admitting how hard she’d fallen for him. How hopelessly in love she was. She didn’t even admit that to herself. Much less to him, because she was not going to give him the power to crush her if it was convenient for him. As much as she had fallen in love with him, she knew perfectly well that she couldn’t trust him. All too often, he forgot his wits and acted like a first class idiot. “It’s a relationship”, she said, and he shifted closer, looking down at her without touching her.

“What kind of relationship?”

“A romantic one, I’d say.”

“That sounds like a question.”

“It is a question”, Belle said. “It depends on how you see us, too.”

For a long moment, she held her breath, expecting him to step back and tell her how silly she was to expect him to enter a relationship with her. Expected him to tell her that she was nothing but a deal, or a feeling of responsibility that was left over from that deal. On the other hand, he had been appalled when he thought she was only sleeping with him because of the deal. Silly man.

“You really want to be with me?”

Silly, silly man. Belle let out her breath and smiled. “Of course. It would be really stupid to let someone like you go.”

“Someone like me? You mean a creep and a pervert?”

“No, silly. Someone who can cook and clean.”

He nodded, as if _that_ would explain her attraction to him, and Belle giggled. She had to pull him down to kiss her, because he himself was too shy and insecure, and again Belle felt her heart clench around that hollow spot beneath her breastbone. He needed her so much, and he didn’t even know it. “I really want to be with you”, she whispered, before their lips met, and she felt how his breath hitched in his throat, making him almost choke.

“So, when Neal and Emma come back, you’re going to move in with me?” he asked then.

“No, of course not! I’m just staying with you as long as they’ll stay.”

“Oh well. One can hope, right?”

He started to leave again, and this time, Belle didn’t hold him back. But she pressed the promise from him to come back and cook for her the next day, and when she kissed him goodbye at the door, she told him to bring his pajamas with him.

“But only if you want to!” she added quickly, when his eyes looked as if they were about to pop out of his skull, and he shook himself like a dog shaking off water, as if he needed to get rid of his shock.

“You mean…all night?”

“No, I mean until midnight, because then I turn back into a pumpkin. Of course all night.”

A smile spread over his face then, slow, and flowing through her insides like warm honey. She could just look at his smile for hours, because it was the most beautiful thing in the world, and she didn’t stop thinking about his smile when she wrapped herself in a blanket on her couch to read, nor when she went to bed, and it went along with her into her dreams of pastel colored sorcerers and fierce golden warriors with swan sigils, that came to kill the sorcerer.  


	18. Soup

He was not sure if it was a good idea to heed her request and bring his pajamas the next day. The last time he had had a sleepover had been...never. And he was not quite sure what the rules were. Did they just go to bed and sleep? Did they have to have sex? Not that he was opposed to that, but it put a certain amount of pressure on him, and that made him nervous. He believed to give an impression of confidence most of the time, but he was not sure if he could maintain that impression over the duration of an evening...and a night...and the morning after. He was bound to fail. Was he really, actually supposed to bring pajamas, or was that just a figure of speech? He decided to take the safe route and packed a small bag with pajamas and toiletries - a tooth brush, a comb, soap - but he hid it beneath a dish towel on his basket with groceries and cooking equipment, in case it had only been a quip.

He learned that she had meant it when she opened the door of her tiny flat to him and her face fell in disappointment when she didn't find a suitcase on him, because normal people surely packed a suitcase for a sleepover, and not just a tiny bag that could be hidden away beneath the celery.

"Don't you want to stay for the night?" Belle asked, and the relief flooding him stood in no relation to the disappointment ringing in her voice.

"I was not sure you really meant that", he admitted, although he was afraid Belle would pity him for his display of insecurity.

"Oh." She didn't say anything else, and he was almost sure then that it had been a mistake to be honest. He followed her into the kitchen, but he wanted to be anywhere but right there at this moment. Why did he have to bear his heart on his tongue? In one short sentence, he had revealed the full extent of his wretchedness.

"So, what are you going to cook today?" She asked, with her voice quiet. Too quiet. He swallowed, and contemplated if it was a good idea to reveal even more of his insecurity.

"Belle, what is it?"

"Did you really think I made a joke? That I didn't want you to spend the night with me?"

He wondered if he had hurt her. If she maybe felt insecure, too. "To be honest, I was never asked before to sleep over..."

"Never? But you were married." She said it as if she suspected him of a lie.

"Yes. Do you know how long ago that was? At that time, sleepovers were not really a thing." Suddenly he felt not only ridiculously insecure, but old. Too old.

"But didn't you spend time with your wife before you married?"

"Of course I did. I was a young man, I could barely stay dressed long enough to leave the house in the morning."

"Oh." Now she looked even sadder, and he could have banged his head against the wall for his own idiocy.

"That's exactly the reason why we had to marry...we weren't careful, and she got pregnant." It hadn't taken him long to find out that a kid was not a stable fundament for a marriage, but that was the time when divorces were just as much a thing as sleepovers. He had been almost grateful when Milah wrapped her car around a tree and died (because seatbelts were just as much a thing as divorces and sleepovers), and he was ashamed for that silent gratefulness to this day. He knew better than to admit that feeling to Belle. It was quite enough that she thought him to be a sneaky bastard and a possibly anal fixated idiot. She needn't think him to be a coldhearted misanthropist.

"I have a hard time staying dressed with you too. And this time it's not my youth."

His words drew a slow smile to her face, and he wanted to kiss her more than anything then.

"I have a hard time staying dressed with you too."

"We should get out of those clothes as fast as possible." That made her giggle, and Gold felt his whole face stretch in a boyish grin. God, how he loved her. The thought wiped the grin from his face and made his stomach drop at least three stories. They didn't even know what this was yet, and he had already completely lost his mind.

"Maybe we should eat first." He looked down on his hands on the basket to avoid her eyes.

"Yes. What are we going to eat today?"

"Soup." Gold started to unpack his basket, aligning carrots, celery and potatoes almost like the numbers of an equation on her kitchen table, and he nudged the celery to form a perfect parallel to the back of his knife. Belle watched him silently, and when she reached over and gave the celery a gentle push, he had to tighten the grip on his cane to keep himself from rectifying the angle again. He wasn’t a perfectionist. At least he told himself that.

"Is it only me or are your meals decidedly less fancy than when we started this whole thing?" She sounded amused, but her words stung. Mostly because she was right. He just had no capacities left for cuisine extraordinaire when she was around.

"Well, when we started this whole thing, I paid you an extraordinary amount of money to watch you eat."

"And there is no need to impress me when you don't pay me? Shouldn't it be the other way around?"

"Is my cooking not after your liking?" He really wore his heart on his sleeve today, and he occupied himself by aligning the celery again, hoping she wouldn't notice his wounded pride. But of course she did.

"I love everything you cook. You could make me burgers and I would love it."

"Then I know what we'll eat tomorrow."

They smiled at each other, silent for a moment, and Gold felt how the tension and the insecurity dissolved with the warmth of her gaze on him. He was content when he started to prepare the soup and Belle helped with chopping the vegetables.

"Do you really have difficulties to concentrate when I'm around?" she asked, and Gold snorted.

"That you even need to ask...I thought it was pretty obvious."

She giggled again, an adorable sound that ended in something akin to a squeak and made him all giddy inside. Squishy.

"It is", she said, and pressed a kiss to his cheek. "And it is adorable. I have no idea how I could think you were a scary bastard."

"Well, I am. Most of the time."

She made a face as if he said something utterly stupid, and when they ate, she clung to his side as if each inch of space that separated them was an inch too much. That she wasn't sitting on his lap was all. She had placed her chair at his side and pressed her thigh against his when she sat at his side, and from time to time she let her head sink to his shoulder. As if she was a cat. And a needy cat at that. They cleaned up together, and then the whole evening lay before them, stretching like an eternity, and he had no idea how to fill it.

"Do you want to watch a movie?" she asked, and Gold shrugged. It was just as good a way to spend time together as any.

"If you want to."

Belle tilted her head and bit her lip. "Maybe we should take a walk."

"Or that, yes."

It had been the wrong thing to say, because she frowned, and looked at him as if he was a cat that had just demonstratively placed excrements outside the litter box.

"Rhett, you don't need to say yes and amen to everything that I suggest. You're allowed to have your own opinion."

"I know. It's just..." He paused, helpless, hoping she would somehow know what he wanted to say without him spelling it out. But obviously she had no idea.

"What, Rhett?"

"I'm not a teenager anymore. I have no idea how these things are supposed to work. And frankly, my dear, I'm as good as a virgin when it comes to all the relationship stuff couples do these days."

Belle stared at him with huge eyes, and her face flushed, as if she was holding her breath. And then, to his utter horror, she burst out laughing. She laughed as if she was short of dying of it, as if she would throw herself to the floor and roll around laughing the next moment. He was ice cold inside.

Gold turned, wanted to grab his basket with his knives and his little sleepover bag and just leave, but before he could lay any distance between himself and the hysteric girl, she tackled him, knocking him nearly of his feet, and started pressing kisses to his face and his throat and every bit of exposed skin she could find.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry", she gasped between fits of laughter, and she held him in her vice-like grip as if she wanted to keep him in her den at all costs. "But frankly, my dear, I think we should watch Gone with the Wind."

Then it dawned at him. "Oh", he grumbled, and Belle burst out in laughter again.

They didn't watch Gone with the wind in the end, but they snuggled onto her tiny couch (where he found, with his impeccable precision, or rather his unfailing luck, the one steel spring that peeked through the upholstering and found its way right into his thigh, resulting in a deep stab wound that prompted Belle to play nurse and patch him up, and led to an impressive outburst of swearwords on his side and the vow to either buy her a new couch or only ever snuggle on his couch, in his house). And later, they cuddled in her bed, where cuddling led to slow kissing and touching and love-making – because this kind of sex was more than just animalistic coupling. He didn't dare to tell her with words that he loved her, so he put all his adoration, all his love in every touch and every kiss and every caress. And he drank in every sigh and every moan he managed to draw from her lips. He learned that the best thing about sleepovers was that he didn't have to get up after loving her, and didn't have to dress. Instead, he could hold her, play with her hair, and sleep with her in his arms. At some time during the night, she awoke and started to pull him out of his sleep with kisses and curious explorations of his body.

 The best thing about sleepovers, he learned, was to wake up in the morning, entangled with a beautiful woman, warm and heavy on his chest. His arm, where her head rested, was numb and would probably kill him as soon as circulation started to come back, and he held his breath to avoid breathing into her face (or inhaling her breath), but he couldn't imagine anything more beautiful than waking up with her. Neither could his body, but before he gave in to the temptation, he wriggled out of bed and dragged himself into the bathroom to get nature out of the way. As soon as he closed the door behind him, he heard something thump in her bedroom, then the pitter-patter of feet and the tap in the kitchen, and he smiled quietly to himself. Apparently, she didn't want him to get to know her morning breath either.

"Morning", he said when he entered the kitchen after he had brushed his teeth, and Belle, bent over the sink and gurgling water, jerked upright.

"Good morning! How was your night? Did you sleep well? Everything alright?" She talked so fast and breathless that he wondered if something was wrong. If he had done something wrong. Maybe she wanted to smell his morning breath? He couldn't imagine that, but people were strange, and he was the last person to judge anyone over their fetishes.

"Everything alright, Belle? You seem...nervous?"

She bit her lip and avoided his gaze. "It's just...I didn't have time for the bathroom, and..."

When she trailed off, he raised his brows. "And what? Did you have to pee into a flowerpot?"

"No!" Belle looked as if she'd very much liked to throw something at him. "I just...I didn't think about how terrible I look in the mornings when I invited you to stay..."

Gold stared at her and wondered what she was talking about. She looked adorable, with ruffled hair, wearing a much too roomy shirt and nothing else, and that sleepy and dreamy expression hanging around her eyes. But maybe she was just as self-conscious as he was. So, instead of asking her if she was kidding, he stepped to her and wrapped his arms around her, and chuckled into her birds-nest-hair.

"That's the most normal thing of the world, sweetie. And I can't even tell you what I was thinking when I saw you bent over that sink just now."

"What were you thinking?" Her voice was muffled, because she pressed her face to his chest, and he let his hands slide to her hips to press her body against his and let her feel exactly what he had been thinking.

He learned, over the course of the next two weeks, that couples did everything normal people did too, just...together. His marriage ended such a long time ago – and wasn't really a paragon of a perfect relationship – that being with Belle felt like being with someone else for the first time ever. And he was terribly afraid of ruining it. So far, he had managed to ruin every relation to living and breathing human beings, no matter the nature of those relations, and the interpersonal contact with Belle hadn't been exactly bump-free either. Sometimes he wished he could just go back to the time when they had had a deal, because having a deal meant having a clear structure and precise rules on which to go. Being in a relationship was complicated. And the closer the weekend came when Neal would come back, the more nervous he became. He didn't dare to talk to Belle about his feelings – especially not his feelings for her – because he feared losing her. And the prospect of losing her, of being alone again after just finding out how wonderful life could be if it was shared with someone, was terrifying.

She came with a suitcase the night before Neal arrived, a suitcase as big as if she planned on staying a month, not only a weekend, and he prepared her an exquisite dinner in his own kitchen.

"Now I get it", she said while they were at the dessert. "You reserve the fancy cooking for your home, so you can lure me into your den and trap me here."

"And here I was, thinking I was subtle."

She giggled, and kissed him, and he hoped she would stay forever. Of course he didn't say such a thing, because why would she? She was young, had her whole life ahead of her, and he...well, he had passed his zenith. She was only three or four years older than his son, for heaven's sake. He resolved to make as much out of his time with Belle as he could, to enjoy every second of it as long as it lasted. Considering his extraordinary luck, it could be over after this weekend.

She went with him to the door when Neal and Emma arrived with their son, and she greeted them when he wasn't able to get out a single word, ushered his son inside as if it was her home and her right to do so. And it was. She didn't know it, but she owned him, and everything he had like it had never been owned before.

"Hey Grandpa", Henry peeped when he came inside, and Gold felt old enough to turn to dust then and there. And the feeling only increased when Belle smiled at him and winked, as if she found it utterly adorable that her boyfriend was someone's grandfather. He found it only despicable. Neal stalked inside and into the living room, where he let his bag clunk to the ground and turned around to face his father, with so much unveiled aggression and tension in his movements that Gold almost expected him to extract a baseball bat out of that bag the very next moment.

"I really hope there is a good reason for this." Neal glared at him as if this reunion had been his idea. Emma placed a hand on Neal’s arm, and for a moment she looked painfully like the girl she had once been, terrified and shaking in shock after he had picked her up on the street, in torn clothes and covered in blood. Her own and that of her grandfather's thugs.

"I don't know. Is there?" Gold directed his question at Emma and Belle, since they had arranged this reunion. Belle took his question as a signal to step up and take control over the situation.

"Why don't we let everyone settle in first and talk later?" She was pointing her chin to Henry, and as if she was the voice of reason, everyone seemed to listen to her. She led Neal and Emma to the guestroom and later helped Gold with dinner preparations, since his hands were shaking so badly that it would have been suicidal to take a knife and cut anything.

He had no idea how he got over dinner, or the awkward silence afterwards. They all silently agreed to wait until Henry was in bed, before they started to talk. He wished to have a moment alone with Emma, so he could ask her what she planned, but he didn’t get so much as a look from her, much less the chance to talk in private. But when the moment was finally there, he felt as if his throat was blocked by the stump of a tree, preventing him from saying anything, and again it was Belle who took the lead and brought them all together to sit down in the living room. She snuggled onto the couch at his side, almost wrapping herself around him like a safety blanket, and he was torn between wanting to disappear in her embrace and wanting to shake her off because he needed space to breathe. Neal chose a chair for himself, and Emma seemed too nervous to sit and was pacing around the couch table.

“Can I finally know what this is about?” Neal asked, and Emma thrust her hands up and grunted. When she didn’t answer, Belle cleared her throat.

“I think it has to do with what happened ten years ago. Why don’t you start with that, Emma?”

The blonde glared at Belle, and now Gold felt the urge to protect her.

“Emma?” Neal asked, and his gaze on Emma had a certain quality that Gold envied. He couldn’t exactly say what it was, though. Maybe trust. Love. The knowledge that no matter what, they belonged. That they had each other. When Emma didn’t answer immediately, his son furrowed his brows, making the face of a confused dog. He always had that slight puppy-quality on him, and Gold’s heart clenched at the sight of it. This was his son. His boy.

“I know what happened ten years ago”, Neal said finally, and Emma grunted and slumped down in Gold’s armchair.

“No, you don’t. You think you know what happened, but that isn’t the truth.” Emma didn’t look at Neal. She didn’t look at anyone. Just like ten years ago, when she had been scared out of her wits and paralyzed in shock.

“What do you mean, that’s not the truth? Why would you have me believe you slept with my father when you didn’t? That makes absolutely no sense.”

“Hey, there’s no need to yell at me!” Emma bristled, and drifted into defensive mode. It was like watching a movie, and Belle and Gold were banned to the audience.

“I’m not yelling! I only start yelling if you tell me you lied to me for ten years!”

“I didn’t lie to you! We just didn’t correct you when you walked in on us and drew the wrong conclusion!”

Both Neal and Emma were yelling by now, and Gold exchanged a short look with Belle, telling her silently that her plan worked out really superbly.

“Maybe we could stop shouting and start from the beginning?” Belle’s voice was thin, and timid, but Emma and Neal stopped glaring at each other and glared at her instead. But something about Belle was compelling them to calm down, and Gold wondered if she somehow exuded something magical. Like a magical flower. He inhaled deeply.

“Emma, you don’t need to do this.” It was the first thing Gold said all evening, and it was probably not the smartest thing. He hoped she would finally tell Neal, so that he had a chance to reconcile with his son, but they had a deal, and he always honored his agreements. Even those that came with great cost to him.

“As if I could go back now.” Emma glared at Belle as if she wanted to stab her. Then she fell back against the back of the armchair and rubbed her forehead.

Neal watched her with narrowed eyes. "You know what? I don't wanna know. It's enough to know that you both lied to me for the last ten years. What more do I need to know?"

Gold had to keep himself from reaching for his son. Probably not the best idea right now. Emma leapt out of the armchair and started pacing again.

“When you walked in on us, I wasn’t dressed because my clothes were torn and bloodied and I was just changing and we had to give them to Albert so there was no evidence."

Neal looked at her as if he saw her for the first time. And as if she was covered in blood, holding an axe. "Evidence for what?" he asked, but Emma didn't answer at once. She stalked through the room, brimming with nervous energy, and she was visibly fighting with herself. No one said anything until she sat down again, perched on the edge of the armchair, ready to jump to her feet and start running at any moment.

"That was part of the agreement.” she said it quietly, barely audible, but the room was so quiet that each breath sounded like thunder.

“What agreement?”

Emma stared down at her lap as if she contemplated the best way to turn into smoke and just disappear. Gold cleared his throat.

“I hammered out a deal with Emma’s grandfather to keep him from suing her for libel and keep his hired muscles away from her in exchange for the evidence that he tried to have her beaten up. Also, he gave us the tapes of her trying to break into his office in exchange for the tapes Emma had showing him in his more illegal activities.”

Everyone, except Emma, stared at him. Neal was the first to speak. “What?”

“Well, if Miss Swan would have come to me, instead of trying to tackle her grandfather on her own, a lot of that nasty affair could have been avoided and she could have succeeded.” He used her last name to give his words a sting, and by the looks of it, it worked.

“Are you fucking telling me that you rather had me believe you slept with my father than tell me you got beaten up because you broke in somewhere?”

“Part of the agreement was absolute silence about the whole affair. I wouldn’t have told you anything if you hadn’t walked in in that particular moment.”

“When you wore nothing but my father’s shirt.”

“What exactly is that whole affair?” Again it was Belle who brought them back to the topic.

"Who the fuck cares? I don’t care if Albert tried to shoot Storybrooke to the fucking moon. Whatever he did, you thought you couldn't tell me. That's all I need to know." Neal rose from his chair, and Gold feared his son would just leave. His fear made him rise from his seat, too, shaking off Belle's hand.

"Sit down. It was Emma's decision to keep the deal to the letter and not to tell anything to anyone. I’d like you to hear her out, now that she's finally talking." His voice rose in volume and sharpness, and Emma clenched her jaws and granted him a murderous look.

"Don't you dare talking to her like that", Neal said, but he sank slowly back down onto his chair. Emma looked from Neal to Gold. It was impossible to tell what she was thinking, and Gold was not at all sure that it was the best strategy to corner her - or Neal, for that matter - into giving up her secret. He had no worries that Albert would ever find out about their breaking of the agreement. Not unless Neal decided to confront the man. Or to kill him. Emma sighed heavily before she started talking again.

“My grandfather – by adoption, not blood – ran for mayor that year”, Emma said. “But I knew enough about him to know that this was really not a good thing, and so I kind of ran a counter campaign and tried to shed some light onto the things he had going on. He wasn’t amused. I mean, he hated our family before, because my father shut him out, but this kind of tipped the scale…And when he caught me stealing documents in his office, it got nasty. He really isn’t the man who stops from anything, and he didn’t have any problems with letting his lackeys beat me up. I guess I was lucky they were stupid enough to do it in an alley not very far from his office.”

“And why would you call that lucky?” Neal sounded calm now. Gold knew the look on his face only too well. Regret. Remorse. Ice cold fury.

“Because someone walked in on it and kept them from doing me any real harm. With a gun. And a cane.”

Neal’s eyes flitted to Gold, and he lifted a brow at his son.

“I still don’t get it. What was the agreement about exactly?” Neal looked back from his father to Emma, with a look as if he was ashamed he had looked at Gold at all.

“Basically it tied everyone up and kept anyone from telling anything about any detail of that affair.” And Emma was still furious about that.

“As I said. If you would have come to me, I could have helped you. As it was, your little stunt cost you your counter campaign and me my son.” His bones felt dislodged as he spoke, shattered. It all had been nothing but bad timing and his inability to refuse Emma when she sat in this same living room, shaking, covered in blood and repeating again and again that Neal must never know. She wanted to protect him, he suspected, and in a moment of weakness, he promised her to do anything she asked of him.

"Are you trying to blame this on me?" All of a sudden Emma concentrated ten years of bottled-up rage and guilt on him, and Gold felt backed into a corner.

"I was only helping you", he said, weakly.

"Yeah, by forcing me into a deal that poisoned my life."

"You did that all by yourself, dearie. I didn't make you lie to my son. I didn't try to blackmail your grandfather."

"Stop it! Both of you!" Neal looked from Emma to his father, and Gold could see how his son struggled to comprehend what they had just told him. "Are you telling me that all this...all these years you lied to me because of a piece of paper? A signature on a deal?"

"Basically, yes." Emma growled like a dog, and she watched Neal with a mixture of fear and anger. And resignation.

Neal stood up again and rubbed over his eyes. Gold wondered if his son rubbed away tears. He certainly felt like crying himself.

"Well, I hope it was worth it." Neal started for the door.

"Neal." Emma tried to hold him back, but he waved her away, refusing to look at her.

"I hope you can sleep on the couch or something. Because I don't want to sleep with you in one bed tonight. I need time to think." And without another look at anyone, he left. Emma looked after him, and although her face was blank as a stone, Gold saw how she crumbled inside, shattered. Utterly destroyed. He took Belle's hand, pure instinct probably, and maybe it was this gesture that pushed Emma over the edge. She leapt to her feet and planted herself in front of Belle.

"I hope you're happy now! You just destroyed a family!" she hissed.

"But..." Before Belle could say anything else, Gold stepped between the two of them, shielding Belle with his body.

"This is not her fault. It has nothing to do with her, so you better back off."

"She pressed me into doing this."

"I can speak for myself." Belle got to her feet behind his back and pushed him gently aside. "I'm sorry, Emma. I'll help you with the couch, alright?"

Gold had no idea what happened, but after a moment of silently staring at Belle, Emma nodded, and followed Belle to his linen closet to fetch another blanket. He could just shake his head and wonder, and he resolved to ask Belle later, when they were alone, what exactly she had bewitched Emma with.

Somehow he had hoped that this evening would reunite him with his son. But now it looked as if he couldn’t do anything right. Neal had hated him when he thought his father did the despicable thing and had an affair with his girlfriend (and he didn’t even want to know how Emma had explained her involvement in that). And his son hated him just as much after learning the truth, after learning that they had lied to him for ten years. Later, when he snuggled in bed with Belle, he was glad that she didn’t want to talk about it. She just closed her arms around him and held him, and for another night, he could hope to wake up in the morning and everything would be alright again. But he knew only too well that happy endings didn’t exist for the likes of him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I typed that with the thumb of my left hand on my phone, since I'm not allowed to write at all by doctor's orders until after Christmas, so I'm sorry that my updates are quite sparse and infrequent now. I didn't abandon the story. :) But I probably won't be updating till January. Merry Christmas, everyone <3


	19. The Morning After

Rhett was still asleep when Belle awoke. He had tossed and turned all night, so it was not really a surprise that now, when he finally slept, he slept like a stone, and nothing could wake him up, not even Belle disentangling herself from him. She put on a robe and tiptoed downstairs. Emma was already awake, though, so Belle didn’t need to be silent. The blonde leaned over Rhett’s coffee machine, pushing buttons erratically and cursing the chrome gleaming thing under her breath. Belle stepped at her side and pushed the right buttons to coax the machine into giving Emma coffee, glad that she had had some time to practice that, because she looked a lot smoother than she actually was then, and Emma grunted a rough “Thank you.” When they both had coffee and sat opposite each other at the table, it was Emma who broke the silence.

“So, you’re living with him now?”

Belle giggled, a little nervous, before she answered. “No. I’m only here for the weekend.”

“So this is still a deal?”

“No! It never was...I mean, it was, but it isn’t anymore. We’re together now.”

Emma raised her brows. “Together, huh? Are you sure about that? I would think twice before dating him.”

“I don’t get how you can say something like this. After all, he sacrificed his relationship with his son for you. That’s not a trade I would make.” Belle’s voice had a hoarse edge when she spoke, and she cleared her throat to get rid of it.

“Well, it isn’t as if he didn’t get anything out of it. But I suppose he’ll never tell you about that.”

Belle didn’t take the bait. She didn’t want to let Emma make her question her relationship with Rhett. "I don't understand why you never told Neal", she said, to turn the conversation away from her and Rhett.

"About my grandfather?" Emma seemed calm.

"Well...it's a little strange that you let him believe something like that rather than tell him the truth."

"You don't know Albert Spencer. He knows how to find people's weaknesses. And he knew that Neal was mine. So, instead of threatening me, he threatened Neal. And if there’s one thing I know about my grandfather, then it’s to take his threats seriously.”

“I don’t understand how family can be like this.” It was so sad. But Emma didn’t seem disturbed by the sorry state of her family. She shrugged and sipped on her coffee.

“Families come in all kind of shapes, sizes and forms. There’s no guarantee that a family is any better than a pack of hungry tigers in a small cage. Or a pool of sharks. Once they smell blood, you’re doomed. Even if it’s their own blood.”

“That’s so sad.”

“It is like it is.” Emma seemed to have thickened her skin to it, and Belle decided to let it rest.

“How did you get back together with Neal after he thought...well...” Belle didn’t know how to phrase it delicately, so she just let it hang there. Emma smiled, but it looked more like a snarl, all teeth and thin lips.

“That I slept with his father? Well, I let him think Rhett took advantage of me, of course. It took a while, but Neal was always ready to see his father at fault. And I didn’t want him to see what kind of person I am. I wanted him to believe the best of me. Not the truth.”

Belle was horrified, and for a moment, she didn’t know what to say. “That’s...low.”

“ I didn’t want to lose him.”

“Yeah, only that now, it’s a thousand times worse than it could have ever been if you started with the truth right away.”

Emma stared down at her cup, and for a moment, Belle even pitied her. And she felt guilty for getting Emma into that position. On the other hand, it wasn’t her fault that Emma had lied to Neal.

“I know that. Believe me, I know. I was young, and I thought I could get away with it. We all do stuff we aren’t proud of. And if I learned one thing in my life, then it is that there isn’t an easy way out.”

Belle didn’t know what to say. And there didn’t seem to be a lot to say that Emma didn’t already tell herself. They remained silent for a few minutes, each immersed in her own thoughts, when they heard steps coming down the stairs and Neal joined them. He looked as if he hadn’t slept at all, his face crumpled and indented with imprints of the seams of his pillows. He planted himself in front of them and crossed his arms over his chest. Belle wanted to melt away, but she feared that every movement of her would deter him from saying what he wanted to say.

“I love you, Emma”, he started, without looking at them. “I really do. But knowing that you lied to me for ten years...I don’t know if I can forgive that. I trusted you. And now I feel as if I don’t even know you anymore. Just tell me why you thought you couldn’t tell me the truth.”

Emma just stared at him, and Belle wished to be anywhere but right there at the moment. But she didn’t dare to move.

“I was afraid you would go out to confront Albert. And he threatened to hurt you if I ever told anyone...”

“That’s the lamest excuse I ever heard. Don’t you think I would have listened to you if you told me not to confront him? Do you think I’m stupid?”

“Um...I think I should go...” Belle tried not to attract too much attention, but still, when she moved, both, Neal and Emma, stared at her as if it was _her_ fault that they were fighting. “I need to dress anyway”, she murmured while she backed away from the dining room table, and she was only able to breathe properly again when she reached the top of the stairs to the first floor. Rhett was just stepping out of the bedroom, and she planted her palm on his chest and pushed him back in.

“Now is not a good time to go downstairs”, she said, just when Emma and Neal started shouting at each other downstairs.

“Are they going to let each other live?” Rhett asked, while Belle closed the bedroom door and leant against it. She shrugged.

“I hope so. But maybe it’s a good thing that they’re letting out their anger. As long as they don’t start to use your knives on each other...”

“Maybe we should look after Henry?”

Belle had totally forgotten about Henry, and it was a good thing that Rhett reminded her of his grandson. When they stepped out of Rhett’s bedroom, the boy was sitting on top of the stairs, a plush crocodile pressed to his chest, and listened to his parents fighting.

“Hey Henry, do you want to watch cartoons with us?” Belle asked, and the boy nodded and took her hand.

“Mom and Dad are fighting”, he said, and Belle squeezed his hand.

“Yes. They have to discuss a lot.”

“Mom said it’s important to always say when we’re pissed about something.”

“Did she now? Well, it looks as if your parents are both angry about some things right now.” Belle exchanged a look with Rhett, who seemed a little panicky, now that they were in a room with Henry and had to entertain him. But Henry was easy to entertain, and he didn’t seem to be upset about his parents fighting. Maybe he trusted in their ability to discuss their differences. After a while, the shouting from downstairs stopped, and Rhett, whose stomach growled in hunger, volunteered to take a look to see if the coast was clear. He wasn’t gone for more than a minute, and when he came back, he closed the door very decidedly, his jaw set in determination and his nostrils flared.

“Everything alright?” The look on his face worried her, and Belle feared that Neal and Emma had taken out their differences with the knives after all.

“I think they reconciled. And I need a new dining room table.”

“Why...oh.”

“Why does Grandpa need a new table?” Henry peeped, and Rhett stared at him, at a loss. Belle had to bite back a giggle.

“Yes, Rhett, why?”

“This table has seen too many things.” Rhett rubbed his forehead as if he tried to rub away the things _he_ had seen.

They watched cartoons for another hour, until it was safe to assume that Emma and Neal were done with their business. When they finally went downstairs (not without peeking first to make sure they weren’t interrupting anything), Emma and Neal had retreated to their room. It was another hour until Neal came down again, showered and far less crumpled than in the morning. But the fact that he had cleared things up with Emma didn’t seem to make him any more sympathetic towards his father.

“I’m still mad at you”, he said, and Rhett, who looked as if he had held his breath, deflated, and hung his head.

“Yes. Of course. I’m sorry.”

Belle watched as Rhett turned and slinked back up the stairs, as if he had been beaten.

“What the hell is wrong with you? Why do you forgive Emma and not your father?”

Neal squared his shoulders, as if preparing for a fight. And he might very well have one ahead of him, because if there was one thing that upset Belle beyond anything else, it was unfairness.

“I get why Emma acted the way she did. She was protecting me.”

“Your father was, too.”

“No, he wasn’t. He was striking a deal that brought him some leverage over his secret arch enemy, no matter the cost.”

“That’s ridiculous. No one in real life has arch enemies.”

“Oh yeah? Maybe it’s time you grow up. He may make it look as if it was some selfless act of human kindness, but my father acts never selfless, under no circumstances whatsoever.”

“That’s not true. He helped me.”

“And he got you, didn’t he?” Neal stared her down, cold and hard, and Belle swallowed. “Yeah, that’s what I thought. It’s nice of you that you want to help us reconcile, but it’s none of your business.”

“That was very rude of you.” Belle bit back the tears threatening to blur her vision. She didn’t want him to see her like this. “I think it’s time for you to grow up. You’ll go up there right now and talk to your father.”

“I’m not a little boy you can order around.”

“Maybe not. But just now, you act like one.” Belle imitated his stance and squared her shoulders. Men were so childish most of the time. Why couldn’t they act like rational people? Neal chewed on his bottom lip, and for a moment, he looked as if he was contemplating to push her out of the way to run away. But before he gave in to it, Emma appeared at Belle’s side.

“Sit down, Neal. You’re going to talk to your father. Please.” When Emma placed her hand on his arm, he let her guide him to a chair and sat down, pouting almost like a little boy. Belle waited till she was sure he wouldn’t go anywhere before going upstairs to fetch Rhett again.

“I’m not going down again”, Rhett said when she entered the bedroom. He sat on his bed, hands folded over the handle of his cane, and staring into the emptiness of his room. Beside him on the bed, Belle spotted a photo album, and on the floor, beside his feet, a bottle of scotch and an empty glass.

“Did you drink?”

“No.” He didn’t meet her eyes, and it was clearly a lie.

“Please, Rhett, I got him to talk to you. Now go down and talk.”

He inhaled deeply, and when he looked up to meet her eyes, there was something so raw and vulnerable in his gaze that Belle had difficulties to breathe for a moment.

“I’m afraid he won’t forgive me”, he said hoarsely, and Belle stepped at his side, treading her fingers through his hair and pulling him closer. He leant his forehead against her stomach, and she felt a shudder run through him.

“He will, eventually. Just talk to him.”

“Will you come with me? Stay at my side?”

She felt his breath warming the fabric covering her stomach, tickling over her skin, and she sighed. “Of course.”

Belle wanted to be anywhere but there at the table with Neal and Emma at one side and Rhett and her on the other when they finally were downstairs again. But just like she held Rhett up, resting her palm at the small of his back to let him know she was at his side at all times, Emma held Neal up, one hand on his shoulder and the other on his forearm. Both men seemed as afraid as if they were facing demons. It was Neal who broke the tentative silence, nudged on by Emma.

“I didn’t think I could ever forgive you”, he said. “However, I was brought to realize that you weren’t any more at fault than Emma and therefore my judgment of you was unjust and childish.” He sounded as he was reciting something he had learned by heart, and the look he gave Emma, searching for approval, made it even more apparent. Not even Rhett could pretend not to notice.

“Are those your words or hers?”

“Hers, of course. I would never say something like that.” Neal flinched when Emma thrust her hands up and groaned.

“Oh...ok. I can live with that.”

Neal raised his eyebrows at his father’s words. “Really? Don’t you need something more...real?”

“Of course I do. But I know you’re not ready for it. And as long as I know that Emma will make you talk to me on holidays and, say, every third weekend of the month, I know that there’s still hope. And I’m ready to wait for it as long as it takes.” Rhett pinned Emma down with his gaze, and Belle realized that he just had dictated her the price of a deal: _Make my son talk to me and I’ll forgive you_. It wasn’t much, but it was better than nothing. And it went astoundingly well. Better than Belle had expected. Maybe those two weren’t boys after all. But the tension didn’t leave Rhett until Neal and his family had left again, and as soon as they were out the door – promising Henry to visit his grandfather again – Rhett pressed Belle against the banister of the stairs and kissed her as if he was starving.

“I love you, Belle”, he whispered, after letting go of her lips, swollen and bruised from his kiss, and Belle needed a moment to catch her breath and the meaning of his words.

“What?”

“I love you. You did this for me, and you have no idea how grateful I am. I love you.” He wrapped his arms around her, pulling her into a tight embrace and pressing his face against the crook of her neck. She felt his lips there, kissing her, nibbling her skin, and a shiver ran over her, making her chest tight and tingly.

“You love me?”

“Of course I do. How could I not?”

Belle pressed her palms against his chest and gently pushed him away, until she could look at his face and into his eyes. “I love you too. Really, really love you.”

His smile was like a squeezing fist around her heart, and her chest was almost too tight to breathe. Rhett moved his hands up from her waist to cradle her face, and he planted a kiss on her forehead, on the tip of her nose, and the corner of her mouth. “Move in with me?” he asked, and Belle’s head started swimming.

“So soon?”

“Why not? My couch is far more comfortable than yours, my kitchen has the better stove, and you could give your apartment to Greg.”

“Um...that’s a little fast, don’t you think? Let’s just start with small steps...Like going out on a date? Other than cooking either here or over at my place, I mean.”

He chuckled and bent down to kiss her again. But before their lips met, he paused, his fingers tracing the shell of her ear when he tucked a strand of her hair behind it, sending another shiver over her. “As you wish”, he murmured, and finally kissed her again, melting her into a helpless puddle of goo in his arms.    


	20. Petit-Four

Greg pulled the keys out of the ignition and climbed out of the van to get the flowers out of the back. Gold had ordered fifty roses, and Greg was pretty sure he knew what it meant. Since Belle moved in with the pawnbroker a few months ago, Greg was sure that it was serious, especially since his hopes that she would move out again within four weeks were not fulfilled. Not that he wanted Belle for himself, no. That would have never worked out. It was just a bet he had running with Moe. But considering the roses, they’d probably both lose. Moe still hated Gold and started raging about the old perv on a regular basis, not wanting to imagine what said creep was doing to his little girl – and commiserating Greg because the wedding with him (that, thank god, had never been a thing) didn’t come to pass.

But if Greg was honest with himself – something he tried to avoid usually, because honesty with himself led to lonely evenings spent with ice cream and beer and his other guilty pleasure – he was a little sad to see Gold off the market. He knocked on the door, rearranging the roses while he waited for Gold to open the door. He had his nose still in the flowers when the door opened, and he straightened himself before clearing his throat.

“I’m Greg Gaston, and I’m delivering the flowers you ordered”, he recited. Gold rolled his eyes.

“I know who you are, and I see that you are delivering flowers.”

Greg shivered with the growl Gold gave off, and tried to hide it behind the huge bundle of roses in his arms. He waited for Gold to fumble with his purse after he handed over the roses, and looked quickly away when he realized what it did to him to watch Gold’s perfectly groomed fingers.

“So...are you going to propose to Belle?” he asked, after taking the money (not without grazing Gold’s fingers with his, a little sad and a little starved at the same time), and Gold frowned and looked at him as if he had already forgotten who it was he was talking to. His mind was definitely occupied with something else.

“Um...I’m thinking about it, yes...”

“Well, then I wish you all the best.” Greg wanted to turn and leave, but then something caught his eye. “You’ve got something...there...on your face...” He extended a hand to fish the small leafy thing – probably salad – out of Gold’s hair, and before he could decide not to do it, he cradled the other man’s face in his huge paws, bending down and pressing his lips to Gold’s. Just for one moment, just for once. Gold went completely limp, and Greg closed his eyes to drown in the softness of Gold’s lips. Soft, so soft, and a little minty, and a little wet, and heavenly. When Greg withdrew, Gold stared at him as if he had been hit by a truck.

“Uh...I’m flattered, but...”

“No need to say it, I know.” Greg smiled. Gold was such a sweetheart, and he really envied Belle. “Not interested, I get it. Sad, sad thing. I hope she says yes.” And with a last nod, he turned around and stalked back to the van. If he was honest with himself, Greg fancied the pain of a broken heart. He never felt quite as alive as when his heart was bleeding from a fresh cut.

***

 

Rhett was still dumbfounded when he closed the door. What the hell had just happened?

“Who was it?” Belle asked out of the kitchen, and Rhett remembered the roses.

“Just someone delivering flowers.” He carried his arm full of roses to the dining room and looked for vases.

“Why did you order so many roses?” Belle came to his side to sneak one of her arms around his waist, and for a moment he closed his eyes, inhaling, and just revelled the feeling of her at his side. This was how he wanted to spend the rest of his life, with her at his side.

“I wanted to decorate the living room and later the bed, so I could love you on a bed of roses.”

“That could be thorny.” Belle giggled, and got up on her tiptoes to press a kiss on his cheek.

“Greg kissed me.” He followed her into the kitchen to fetch some water for the roses, and he wished he could see her face when he told her about the kiss.

“Poor Greg.”

“He kissed _me_ , why do you say _poor Greg_?”

Belle fetched them plates out of the cupboard and bent down to look for napkins, causing him to lick his suddenly dry lips. He was thirsty. Incredibly thirsty.

“Well, Greg has been carrying a torch for you almost from the moment on he met you. It’s a little sad, don’t you think?”

“Would you rather have me be with him?”

“Of course not. You’re mine.” There was a fierce tone in her voice when she straightened again and stepped to him to hook her hands into his belt. He needed something to drink. To look at her lips alone, deep red and slightly open, shining with the wetness of her tongue, made him feel as if he was crossing the desert, following the light, cool air that was telling of a well. He bent a little closer, close enough to smell her scent of soap and warmth, and inhaled, filling his lungs with as much of her as possible. He needed to kiss her like he needed to breathe. But Belle had a different plan, and his breath hitched in his throat when she opened his belt, and the zipper of his pants, and went down on her knees.

“What are you doing?” he rasped, sounding ridiculously high pitched.

“What do you think? I’m taking what is mine!”

And that was the last thing she said before closing those cherry red lips around him. His heart stopped, stuttered, and started beating again like a kettledrum. Unfortunately, that was the moment when he saw the petit-fours on the kitchen counter. There were six of them. Belle swirled her tongue around him and sucked him in even deeper, and his knees almost buckled. Why were there only six petit-fours? He had piled up seven...He had to grab the counter behind him, groaning, trying his best not to thrust into her mouth when she pressed her tongue against him.

“Belle...”

Where was the seventh petit-four, the one that had been on top of his little pyramid of petit-fours, the one that...

“Belle!” He almost shouted when she hollowed her cheeks, and she let go of him with a wet plop.

“What?” She grinned up at him, her lipstick smeared and that dreamy look in her eyes that drove him out of his mind.

“Where is the seventh petit-four?”

“Oh...Well, I know how much you hate odd numbers, so I ate it...”

“You ate it?” He groaned, and grabbed her elbows to help her up.

“Rhett, I don’t understand, what’s wrong?” Belle furrowed her brows, and she started to get impatient, he could see it in the way she bit her lips and creased her nose.

“Of course you ate it...We have to go to the hospital.”

“What? Why?” Belle crossed her arms and dug her heels into the ground while he brought his clothes in order.

“Because you ate the petit-four.”

“Oh my god, I thought these things were meant for eating. What was in it, rat poison?” She was definitely mad now, and Rhett covered his eyes with his palm, trying to rub his embarrassment away.

“Belle...think. Roses? A fancy meal? Special dessert?”

“What, did you want to propose?” She said it as if she was making a joke, but when he raised his eyebrows, she paled, and gulped. “You wanted to propose? To me?”

“No, to Greg. Of course to you, silly. That was, until you ate the ring.”

“I ate the ring.” The look on her face was almost funny, and he would have laughed, if there wasn’t a sharp edged object making its way through her intestines right now.

“Indeed you did. So, are you coming with me to see a doctor?”

“Will you still ask me to marry you after this?” Belle didn’t meet his eyes, and the red glow on her cheekbones awoke his wish to hug her until the world stopped turning.

“Every day for the rest of my life, even when we are already married and old and grey and deaf.”

In the end, it was only a little longer till he was able to pose the question.

 

THE END


End file.
